Measuring language ability of students with compensatory multidimensional CAT: A post-hoc simulation study

The computerized adaptive tests (CAT) apply an adaptive process in which the items are tailored to individuals' ability scores. The multidimensional CAT (MCAT) designs differ in terms of different item selection, ability estimation, and termination methods being used. This study aims at investigating the performance of the MCAT designs used to measure the language ability of students and to compare the results of MCAT designs with the outcomes of corresponding paper–pencil tests. For this purpose, items in the English Proficiency Tests (EPT) were used to create a multi-dimensional item pool that consists of 599 items. The performance of the MCAT designs was evaluated and compared based on the reliability coefficients, root means square error (RMSE), test-length, and root means squared difference (RMSD) statistics, respectively. Therefore, 36 different conditions were investigated in total. The results of the post-hoc simulation designs indicate that the MCAT designs with the A-optimality item selection method outperformed MCAT designs with other item selection methods by decreasing the test length and RMSD values without any sacrifice in test reliability. Additionally, the best error variance stopping rule for each MCAT algorithm with A-optimality item selection could be considered as 0.25 with 27.9 average test length and 30 items for the fixed test-length stopping rule for the Bayesian MAP method. Overall, MCAT designs tend to decrease the test length by 60 to 65 percent and provide ability estimations with higher precision compared to the traditional paper–pencil tests with 65 to 75 items. Therefore, it is suggested to use the A-optimality method for item selection and the Bayesian MAP method for ability estimation for the MCAT designs since the MCAT algorithm with these specifications shows better performance than others.

A Tool to Measure Entrepreneurial Skill among Agripreneurs

Entrepreneurship skills are an individual’s ability to make business in a profitable way. The study focused on to develop a tool to measure the entrepreneurial skill among the agripreneurs by reviewing of literature. Item selection and scoring procedure had been included in this study. Based on the reliability and validity testing, this study finalized the instruments to yielding seven indicators, namely, marketing dimension, psychological magnitude, managerial skill, behavioural skill, technical skill, communication competency, cognitive skill. It is recommended that future researchers apply and thereby extend the developed measure by cross-examining the instruments presented in this study across different entrepreneurs study. The results obtained will be helpful in planning and implementing the capacity development programmes. Among seven indictors and the respective sub indicators, the indicators and sub indicators having above 0.75 relative weightage score had taken for final index. The study found that marketing skill (0.88), psychological magnitude (0.89), behavioural skill (0.79), technical skill (0.83), communication competency (0.93) and cognitive skill (0.89) were the major skill of the agri entrepreneurs, should possess to run their business effectively and efficiently.

MSA: The forgotten index for identifying inappropriate items before computing exploratory item factor analysis

Kaiser’s single-variable measure of sampling adequacy (MSA) is a very useful index for debugging inappropriate items before a factor analysis (FA) solution is fitted to an item-pool dataset for item selection purposes. For reasons discussed in the article, however, MSA is hardly used nowadays in this context. In our view, this is unfortunate. In the present proposal, we first discuss the foundation and rationale of MSA from a ‘modern’ FA view, as well as its usefulness in the item selection process. Second, we embed the index within a robust approach and propose improvements in the preliminary item selection process. Third, we implement the proposal in different statistical programs. Finally, we illustrate its use and advantages with an empirical example in personality measurement.

Comparative Study of Justification Methods in Recommender Systems: Example of Information Access Assistance Service (IAAS)

Justification of recommendations increases trust between users and the system but also generates more relevant recommendations than recommendation systems that do not incorporate it. That is why, we conducted a justification study of the recommendation for IAAS. Our comparative study shows that IAAS, which currently does not offer the opportunity to justify recommendations, needs to be improved. From the analysis of justification methods studied in this work, it appears that none of these methods can be used effectively in IAAS. That is why, we proposed a new IAAS architecture that deals separately with item classification and the extraction of the justification has added the item during recommendation generation. The item selection method remains unchanged as we plan to implement a new strategy to filter user’s reviews should now be extended to four elements: the documentary unit, the group of users, the justification and the weight. Opinion A=(UD,G,J,a). Where UD represents the documentary unit, G the user group, J is the justification and a is the weight of the recommendation.

DEVELOPMENT AND STANDARDISATION OF SEXUAL SATISFEACTION SCALE

The aim of this study is to develop a comprehensive,valid,and reliable tool to measure the level of sexual satisfaction of married men and women and has been named as Sexual Satisfaction Scale (SSS).Initially, the item selection was done based on the past literature and on interviews of 30 happily married couples.Secondly,administration of questionnaire in 23 married male and females were done and thirdly,administration of draft was done in 200 married male and female in age ranging 20 - 60 in different cities of Kerala.The reliability established was 0.78 and validity was 0.69.

Analyzing Midair Object Pointing Mappings for Smart Display Input

One common task when controlling smart displays is the manipulation of menu items. Given current examples of smart displays that support distant bare hand control, in this paper we explore menu item selection tasks with three different mappings of barehand movement to target selection. Through a series of experiments, we demonstrate that Positional mapping is faster than other mappings when the target is visible but requires many clutches in large targeting spaces. Rate-based mapping is, in contrast, preferred by participants due to its perceived lower effort, despite being slightly harder to learn initially. Tradeoffs in the design of target selection in smart tv displays are discussed.

Item Selection on The Moodle-Based Computerized Adaptive Test

In this industrial era, all areas of life have been entered. There are five central issues that support performance, namely numerical physical devices, production tools, programs, interfaces, and networks. The Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment (Moodle) in order to support Industrial technology has been equipped with adaptive test facilities. Adaptive Moodle can be used to organize a communicative and interactive test process because of the communication features (chat, messaging, or forum). In addition, Adaptive Moodle can be used to administer online tests. Adaptive tests are tests whose quiz presentations will adjust to the user’s abilities. The results of the research that has been carried out regarding the selection of items on the Moodle-based computerized adaptive test (CAT) were obtained: (1) The Moodle adaptive test worked successfully in accordance with the research objectives, (2) Based on user responses, the selection of items on the Moodle adaptive test items had worked well for the exam, (3) The Moodle adaptive test can run according to its function, namely adaptive to the user’s ability.