Dennis Roberts wrote:
> of course, research eons ago has shown that test performance is optimized
> ... by having items in the order of easy to difficult ... IF there is a
> time limit where some examinees have to push to get finished
>
> now that's a thought ... maybe if the items WERE ordered that way ... some
> of that large % that seem to be failing ... would gain an item or two in
> their score and pass!!! what a simple thing to do to make the students in
> mass. look better! and mass. education!
It seems to me that the "advantage" given by putting the problems in
approximate order of difficulty is legitimate - much like the
"advantage" given by having the questions printed in a legible font, by
not interrupting the test several times for corrections and random
information, or by not scheduling a fire drill during the test.
If indeed the scores are being reduced by hiding the easy questions
among the harder ones, then I would say yes, this is a defect of the
current system, and should be changed. It may be that the questions
themselves ought to be more difficult; but the difficulty ought to be
intrinsic to the questions, not an artifact of the test format. What is
at issue here is essentially signal-to-noise ratio.
-Robert Dawson
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