Can Examinees Use Judgments of Item Difficulty to Improve Proficiency Estimates on Computerized Adaptive Vocabulary Tests?

Recent simulation studies indicate that there are occasions when examinees can use judgments of relative item difficulty to obtain positively biased proficiency estimates on computerized adaptive tests (CATs) that permit item review and answer change. Our purpose in the study reported here was to evaluate examinees' success in using these strategies while taking CATs in a live testing setting. We taught examinees two item difficulty judgment strategies designed to increase proficiency estimates. Examinees who were taught each strategy and examinees who were taught neither strategy were assigned at random to complete vocabulary CATs under conditions in which review was allowed after completing all items and when review was allowed only within successive blocks of items. We found that proficiency estimate changes following review were significantly higher in the regular review conditions than in the strategy conditions. Failure to obtain systematically higher scores in the strategy conditions was due in large part to errors examinees made in judging the relative difficulty of CAT items.