Computer-Based Testing

Abstract

With the introduction of the first computers in the 1970s, the potential of this new technology to generate not only new types of learning environments but also completely new settings for the design and administration of tests, was quickly recognized. Compared to the well-known paper-and-pencil tests, which imply a static presentation of test items with limited interactivity and which depend on complex logistics and administration procedures implemented by trained test administrators, computer-based tests seemed to offer a number of advantages. Due to the interactive testing environments and the data-processing capacities offered by the computer, these potential advantages and added values cover a range of new possibilities that might extend from standardized and automatized administration and scoring procedures through interactive and media-enriched new item types to the possibility of recording and exploiting behavioral data or the possibility of new test administration procedures such as adaptive testing. From a historical perspective, computer-based testing has also capitalized on the introduction of new psychometric models, especially the introduction of item response theory in the 1960s. Further, administering tests on computers opens the door toward the measurement of psychological constructs that have been beyond the reach of paper-and-pencil instruments, because they require interactions in complex environments and can only be accessed through observations in natural settings. The computer offers the possibility to simulate these environments, to record important interactions, and thus to administer tests for these interactive constructs in an efficient and scalable way. This would not be feasible without this new technology. In the last decades, research on computer-based testing has thus experienced a considerable development, as the empirical basis for the potential added value of computer-based tests compared to classical paper-and-pencil instruments had to be developed. However, computer-based testing did not only come with advantages. A number of technical and theoretical challenges related to these tests, such as the availability and compatibility of hardware and software or the need for large item banks have been initially underestimated. Today, one of the major challenges of the field is the development of truly interactive test formats that take full advantage of the technical possibilities offered by the computer. These developments raise a number of challenges in the field of theory development related to the new technology enriched constructs, in the field of psychometric developments related to new complex types of test data, and in the field of IT development related to the need for comparable hard- and software components.