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SUMMARY:Computerized Adaptive Testing - The State of the Art - Philipp Doe
 bler (University of Muenster\, Germany)
DTSTART:20101111T140000Z
DTEND:20101111T150000Z
UID:TALK26520@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Michal Kosinski
DESCRIPTION:Latent traits - mental abilities\, qualities and attitudes uno
 bservable by direct measurement - are challenging to quantify. Psychologis
 ts\, medical and educational researchers try to learn about latent traits 
 by administering tests and relating the score of the test to the latent tr
 ait. Nevertheless\, if a four year old is presented with an intelligence t
 est for an adult\, little is to be learned about the child's intelligence\
 , even if the child is exceptionally bright. On the other hand when the sa
 me four year old child prodigy is tested with a standard instrument approp
 riate for his age group\, one does not learn much about the child's IQ eit
 her. Even if some reasonable conclusions could be drawn\, the precision of
  these would be questionable.\n\nAdaptive tests provide a solution to this
  problem: the difficulty of the test adapts while the test is performed. B
 ased on estimates of the latent trait obtained during testing\, the next t
 est item is chosen from a pre-calibrated pool of items\, so that in a rigo
 rous sense some notion of information is maximized. Many tests that adapt 
 to the respondent have been developed in the last 30 years\, personal comp
 uters making adaptive testing feasible. The underlying theory of these tes
 t procedures is an active field of research. I will give an overview of ba
 sic and advanced procedures and of problems in adaptive testing and strate
 gies to cope with them.\n
LOCATION:Seminar Room\, PPSIS\, New Museums Site
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