A Blocked-CAT Procedure for CD-CAT

Abstract

This article introduces a blocked-design procedure for cognitive diagnosis computerized adaptive testing (CD-CAT), which allows examinees to review items and change their answers during test administration. Four blocking versions of the new procedure were proposed. In addition, the impact of several factors, namely, item quality, generating model, block size, and test length, on the classification rates was investigated. Three popular item selection indices in CD-CAT were used and their efficiency compared using the new procedure. An additional study was carried out to examine the potential benefit of item review. The results showed that the new procedure is promising in that allowing item review resulted only in a small loss in attribute classification accuracy under some conditions. Moreover, using a blocked-design CD-CAT is beneficial to the extent that it alleviates the negative impact of test anxiety on examinees’ true performance.