Uniform Test Assembly with Lower Item Exposure Using Integer Programming

Abstract

Recently, the necessity of "uniform test forms" for which each form comprises a different set of items,but which still has equivalent measurement accuracy has been emerging. However, the construction of uniforms tests often suffers bias of item exposure frequency. This problem decreases reliability of items and tests. Therefore, the item exposure frequency should have a uniform distribution. For this purpose, this study proposes a new uniform test assembly: uniform test assembly with lower item exposure using integer programming. Our method considers bias of item-exposure by excluding highly exposed items from an item bank when generating a uniform test. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method using simulated and actual data.