Correlates of Unwarranted Confidence in Responses to Objective Test Items

Jacobs, Stanley S.

doi:10.1111/j.1745-3984.1971.tb00901.x

Cited by 19 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 18 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Overall, the choice weighting approaches have produced little in the way of increased re liability or validity of measurement (e.g., Diamond, 1975;Kasup and Hakstian, 1975;Hasen, 1971;Jacobs, 1971). Rippey (1970) compared five such approaches and summarized the re sults as follows: "Comparison between reliabilities showed that the simplest and most intui tive function, the probability assigned to the correct answer, produced the highest reliabil ity.. . "…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Increasing Testing Efficiency and Effectiveness per Item and per Minute of Testing Time

Jensen¹

1983

Public Personnel Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Increasing Testing Efficiency and Effectiveness per Item and per Minute of Testing Time

Jensen¹

1983

Public Personnel Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…It is possible to devise optimum strategies for answering with confidence systems that do not have the reproducing property of Shuford, Albert, and Massengill. A final evaluation of confidence testing must weigh the gain in ability variation against the gain in error variation. The studies of Jacobs (1971), Hansen (1971), and Swineford (1938Swineford ( ,1941 lead one to conclude that there is a personality factor of "general confidence" operating in the confidence testing procedure which contaminates the results yielding an increase in error variation. Shuford and Massengill (1969) have claimed that this factor can be eliminated or at least considerably reduced with practice using their SCoRule device although there exists little data to support such a claim.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More recently, Ziller (1957) suggested an alternative method for determining a similar score from similar data. Jacobs (1971) has questioned the use of confidence weighting on the grounds that the scoring procedure tends to be contaminated by individual differences in personality. For other studies using confidence testing in personality research see Kogan and Wallach (1964) and Slakter (1967Slakter ( ,1968.…”

Section: Confidence Weighting Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Confidence testing is a method of testing where weights are assigned directly or indirectly to item responses in such a way as to reflect the examinee's belief in the correctness of the alternative or alternatives so marked. One author (Jacobs, 1971) has made a distinction between confidence weighting procedures and probabilistic testing. This paper considers these two procedures as categories of the more general subject of confidence testing.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Use of Confidence Testing In Objective Tests

Echternacht

1972

Review of Educational Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Lord and Novick (1968) have stated that the general problem of obtaining the maximum amount of information from a given set of items contains three major components. The first of these is the measurement procedure, or the manner in which the examinees respond to the items. The second component is the specification of an item scoring rule or formula that is used for each item. The final component is the combination of the item scores into a total score by an item weighting formula. The first two components comprise much of the subject of confidence testing. Confidence testing is a method of testing where weights are assigned directly or indirectly to item responses in such a way as to reflect the examinee's belief in the correctness of the alternative or alternatives so marked. One author (Jacobs, 1971) has made a distinction between confidence weighting procedures and probabilistic testing. This paper considers these two procedures as categories of the more general subject of confidence testing.The purpose of this paper is to describe the various forms of confidence testing as they have been developed and to provide a brief evaluation of these forms. Some of the problems associated with confidence testing are discussed with the relevant studies cited.In the usual multiple-choice test, an examinee is given a question along with a number of possible answers to that question. He is then asked to choose an answer from those given and to indicate that choice on an answer sheet. If he chooses the correct answer, he receives a score of one; if he omits the item, he gets a score of zero; and if he guesses incorrectly or is misinformed as to the correct answer, he receives a score less than or equal to zero, as with the commonly used formula score. The total test score is then taken as the sum of the item scores.This type of testing has the advantages of efficiency and simplicity for both the examinee and the test scorer. More items can be administered in a given period of time using this method than by any other method requiring a more complicated response, and the cost for scoring the test is also less.Advocates of confidence testing have stated that knowledge is neither a dichotomous nor a trichotomous affair, which conventional 217 at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on June 10, 2015 http://rer.aera.net Downloaded from

show abstract

“…These marking schemes had the disadvantages of being "complicated to score, requiring pretraining in the format for the students, and confounding of scores with personality dimensions, in so far as some types of personality are more prone to expressing unwarranted confidence (Hansen, 1971;Jacobs, 1971). This sort of test scoring has not been used for large scale testing purposes, possibly because of these disadvantages.…”

mentioning

confidence: 95%

An alternative method of answering and scoring multiple choice tests

Taylor¹,

Gardner

1999

Research in Science Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A simple modification to the method of answering and scoring multiple choice tests allows students to indicate their estimates of the probability of the correcmess of the multiple choice options for each question, without affecting the validity of the assessment. A study was conducted using a test that investigated common misconceptions in mechanics. The study showed that for assessment purposes this method gives results that are very similar to results obtained by students who answer in the traditional manner. Year 12 Physics students (N = 85) were randomly allocated to two treatment groups: one received a standard format multiple choice test, the other a test format allowing students to select more than one response in a multiple choice test, and to distribute their marks among their chosen options. An analysis of the students' uncertainties is used to argue that not only can students appeal to different conceptions in different contexts, but that they can also hold conflicting conceptions with respect to a single context.

show abstract

Correlates of Unwarranted Confidence in Responses to Objective Test Items

Cited by 19 publications

References 18 publications

Increasing Testing Efficiency and Effectiveness per Item and per Minute of Testing Time

Increasing Testing Efficiency and Effectiveness per Item and per Minute of Testing Time

The Use of Confidence Testing In Objective Tests

An alternative method of answering and scoring multiple choice tests

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About