Some New Item Selection Criteria for Adaptive Testing

Abstract

In this study some alternative item selection criteria for adaptive testing are proposed. These criteria take into account the uncertainty of the ability estimates. A general weighted information criterion of which the usual maximum information criterion and the proposed alternative criteria are special cases is suggested. A small simulation study was conducted to compare the different criteria. The results showed that the likelihood weighted information criterion is a good alternative to the maximum information criterion. Another good alternative is a maximum information criterion with the maximum likelihood estimator of ability replaced by the Bayesian expected a posteriori estimator.