Position Of Item Research Articles

Analysing item position effects due to test booklet design within large-scale assessment

For large-scale assessments, usually booklet designs administering the same item at different positions within a booklet are used. Therefore, the occurrence of position effects influencing the difficulty of the item is a crucial issue. Not taking learning or fatigue effects into account would result in a bias of estimated item difficulty. The occurrence of position effects is examined for a 4th-grade mathematical competence test of the Austrian Educational Standards by means of the linear logistic test model (LLTM). A small simulation study assesses the test power for this model. Overall, the LLTM without a modelled position effect yielded a good model fit. Therefore, no relevant global item position effect could be found for the analysed mathematical competence test.

Positional and temporal clustering in serial order memory

The well-known finding that responses in serial recall tend to be clustered around the position of the target item has bolstered positional-coding theories of serial order memory. In the present study, we show that this effect is confounded with another well-known finding--that responses in serial recall tend to also be clustered around the position of the prior recall (temporal clustering). The confound can be alleviated by conditioning each analysis on the positional accuracy of the previously recalled item. The revised analyses show that temporal clustering is much more prevalent in serial recall than is positional clustering. A simple associative chaining model with asymmetric neighboring, remote associations, and a primacy gradient can account for these effects. Using the same parameter values, the model produces reasonable serial position curves and captures the changes in item and order information across study-test trials. In contrast, a prominent positional coding model cannot account for the pattern of clustering uncovered by the new analyses.

How does attention relate to the ability-specific and position-specific components of reasoning measured by APM?

The aim of the present study was to clarify the nature of the ability-specific and position-specific components of Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (APM) by relating them to a number of types of attention. The ability-specific component represents the constant part of cognitive performance whereas the position-specific component reflects the changes in processing of reasoning items as a result of the changing item position. A special model denoted fixed-links model was used to decompose the data of APM into independent components. Both components were related to two higher-order units of attention, perceptual attention and executive attention, which were derived from the various types of attention. In a sample of 226 participants the position-specific component of APM showed a substantially higher link with executive attention than with perceptual attention whereas the ability-specific component only showed a moderate link with perceptual attention.

Branched adaptive testing with a Rasch-model-calibrated test: analysing item presentation's sequence effects using the Rasch-model-based LLTM

Item position effects provoke serious problems within adaptive testing. This is because different testees are necessarily presented with the same item at different presentation positions, as a consequence of which comparing their ability parameter estimations in the case of such effects would not at all be fair. In this article, a specific adaptive Rasch-model-calibrated test, AID 2 (Adaptive Intelligence Diagnosticum – Version 2.2; Kubinger, 2009a), is analyzed according to a suggestion of Kubinger (2008, 2009b): applying the Rasch-model-based Linear logistic test model (LLTM) to test item presentation's sequence effects. AID 2's subtests are to be administered along a branched testing design; 5 of these subtests are now under consideration. Results showed no stringent trend of an item position effect for any specific subtest or generally for any combinations of item subsets; to the extent that such an effect was established, it was not really large enough to be of practical relevance.

Common capacity‐limited neural mechanisms of selective attention and spatial working memory encoding

One characteristic feature of visual working memory (WM) is its limited capacity, and selective attention has been implicated as limiting factor. A possible reason why attention constrains the number of items that can be encoded into WM is that the two processes share limited neural resources. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have indeed demonstrated commonalities between the neural substrates of WM and attention. Here we investigated whether such overlapping activations reflect interacting neural mechanisms that could result in capacity limitations. To independently manipulate the demands on attention and WM encoding within one single task, we combined visual search and delayed discrimination of spatial locations. Participants were presented with a search array and performed easy or difficult visual search in order to encode one, three or five positions of target items into WM. Our fMRI data revealed colocalised activation for attention-demanding visual search and WM encoding in distributed posterior and frontal regions. However, further analysis yielded two patterns of results. Activity in prefrontal regions increased additively with increased demands on WM and attention, indicating regional overlap without functional interaction. Conversely, the WM load-dependent activation in visual, parietal and premotor regions was severely reduced during high attentional demand. We interpret this interaction as indicating the sites of shared capacity-limited neural resources. Our findings point to differential contributions of prefrontal and posterior regions to the common neural mechanisms that support spatial WM encoding and attention, providing new imaging evidence for attention-based models of WM encoding.

Nonverbal stimuli in a virtual aisle: does the shelf you choose matter?

In this work, we evaluate the phenomenon of asymmetric perception of some nonverbal stimuli located in an aisle of a virtual store. In a stimulus detection experiment, with a number of potentially confounding variables held under control, it was found that the nonverbal stimuli utilized (belonging to the color, size, and shape families) were perceived more rapidly when placed on shelves on the left rather than on the right of the observer. This response pattern was constant regardless the nature of stimulus and the gender of observer. The experiment also showed the following sequence, in descending order of perception rapidity: color–shape–size. Our results appear consistent with the predictions of the brain laterality theory. Overall, our article provides an initial contribution to extend the results of Rettie and Brewer (Journal of Product and Brand Management 2000; 9, no. 1: 56–70) pioneering work obtained by reference to specific problems of package design to the positioning of items with respect to in-store traffic flow. Limitations and managerial implications of our work are discussed.

Exploring the enactment effect from an information processing view: What can we learn from serial position analyses?

The focus of the present article was to analyze processes that determine the enactment and age effect in a multi-trial free recall paradigm by looking at the serial position effects. In an experimental study (see Schatz et al 2010), the performance-enhancing effect of enactive encoding and repeated learning was tested with older and younger participants. As expected, there was a steady improvement of memory performance as a function of repeated learning regardless of age. In addition, enactive encoding led to a better memory performance than verbal encoding in both age groups. Furthermore, younger adults outperformed the elderly regardless of type of encoding. Analyses in the present article show that encoding by enacting seems to profit especially from remembering the last items of a presented list. Regarding age differences, younger outperformed older participants in nearly all item positions. The performance enhancement after task repetition is due to a higher amount of recalled items in the middle positions in a subject performed task (SPT) and a verbal task (VT) as well as the last positions of a learned list in VT.

Knowledge of the ordinal position of list items in pigeons.

Ordinal knowledge is a fundamental aspect of advanced cognition. It is self-evident that humans represent ordinal knowledge, and over the past 20 years it has become clear that nonhuman primates share this ability. In contrast, evidence that nonprimate species represent ordinal knowledge is missing from the comparative literature. To address this issue, in the present experiment we trained pigeons on three 4-item lists and then tested them with derived lists in which, relative to the training lists, the ordinal position of the items was either maintained or changed. Similar to the findings with human and nonhuman primates, our pigeons performed markedly better on the maintained lists compared to the changed lists, and displayed errors consistent with the view that they used their knowledge of ordinal position to guide responding on the derived lists. These findings demonstrate that the ability to acquire ordinal knowledge is not unique to the primate lineage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved).

Validating a DEA-based menu analysis model using structural equation modeling

While a restaurant's menu is known as the cornerstone of the operation, research aimed at optimizing it has not radically evolved. This is problematic in that traditional menu management and analysis models share the common and irremediable shortcoming of variable interdependency, in which the central intersection between vectors in a matrix is dictated by the means for the associated variables. In other words, changes to a single menu item alter the means of the related variables and artificially alter the position of other menu items. Moreover, the limited number of inputs, which typically ignore labor and labor costs, casts suspicion on any conclusions that are drawn. More recent models, such as those that integrate non-parametric statistics including data envelopment analysis (DEA), promise greater utility but have gone largely untested. This paper extends the more holistic model made possible by applying DEA and then tests the resulting archetype using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results suggest that DEA models are valid and that even more complex models are possible. For managers, the findings illustrate the inadequacy of earlier, simplistic models and call for a broader understanding of menu optimization approaches.

A new tool for measuring hand preference in non-human primates: Adaptation of Bishop's Quantifying Hand Preference task for Olive baboons

As non-human primates are phylogenetically close to humans, they are ideal models to investigate the precursors of human brain hemispheric specialisation. However, in spite of hundreds of reports investigating hand preference, empirically based theories generating valuable predictions are still lacking, mainly because of a disappointing deficiency in comparability between studies and even more so between species. Therefore, we propose here to adapt, for the first time, the Quantifying Hand Preference (QHP) task, devised for humans, to non-human primates. This test could be a very useful standard measure of hand preference for simple reaching in non-human primates because of its simplicity to set up and of the parameters (e.g., subject's posture; position of the item) it can control. Our test subjects were 42 baboons of various ages and both sexes. Our results highlight the crucial influence of item position on hand preference for simple reaching, even when the item is positioned close to the subjects’ body midline. Both sex and age influence baboons’ handedness index but this effect varies according to the position of the item to be grasped. We discuss our results within the theoretical framework concerning hemispheric specialisation for object manipulation and with the perspective of replicating this experiment with other non-human primate species and genera.

Review: KAYWA and Kooaba

KAYWA ; www.kaywa.com Kooaba ; www.kooaba.com If architecture is a kind of hardware, it may seem surprising that in recent months these pages have been filled, at least in part, with reviews of software. In particular, those programs and institutions that offer graphic interface-based models of space (e.g., Google Earth, ARTstor, etc.) have rightfully received attention as current or potential tools of the art and architectural historian. These reviews have offered insights into the ways in which our discipline is changing——augmented and perhaps impoverished——by the inevitable onrush of these technologies. However, a crucial aspect of all of these programs or tools, which has been consistently elided (and architectural historians are by no means alone in perpetrating this elision), is their primary status as advertising. If this claim strikes the reader as strange, a quick visual analysis of any Google site, ARTstor metadata page, or Twitter feed should set you at an appropriate level of unease. To the serious historian of art and architecture, advertising is something of a beete noire. To caricature the debate, there remains a profound tension between those in our disciplines who, on the one hand, would prefer to exclude advertising from the realm of true art, and on the other, those who would expand the disciplines' boundaries to include advertising, folk art, propaganda, institutional ephemera, industrial or commercial illustration, commodities, and so on, within a revised canon of visual culture.1 This debate has concealed from most historians of art and architecture the technical, aesthetic, and spatial aspects of advertising, and forestalled the serious study and critique that only our disciplines are prepared to provide. The advertising image acts as an index. Its primary function is to point away from itself, and in its most effective forms, it actually redirects our attention to from the image to the referent. Yet the advertising …

Dual representation of item positions in verbal short-term memory: Evidence for two access modes

Memory sets of N=1 ~ 5 digits were exposed sequentially from left-to-right across the screen, followed by N recognition probes. Probes had to be compared to memory list items on identity only (Sternberg task) or conditional on list position. Positions were probed randomly or in left-to-right order. Search functions related probe response times to set size. Random probing led to ramped, “Sternbergian” functions whose intercepts were elevated by the location requirement. Sequential probing led to flat search functions—fast responses unaffected by set size. These results suggested that items in STM could be accessed either by a slow search-on-identity followed by recovery of an associated location tag, or in a single step by following item-to-item links in study order. It is argued that this dual coding of location information occurs spontaneously at study, and that either code can be utilised at retrieval depending on test demands.

Salience of working-memory maintenance and manipulation deficits in schizophrenia

Encoding and maintenance of information in working memory, followed by internal manipulation of that information for planning adaptive behavior, are two key components of working-memory systems. Both processes have been reported to be impaired in schizophrenia, but few studies have directly compared the relative severity of these abnormalities, or the degree to which manipulation deficits might be secondary to alterations in maintenance processes. Clinically stable schizophrenia patients (n=25) and a demographically similar healthy comparison group (n=24) were administered a verbal span task with three levels of working-memory load. Maintenance was assessed using sequential position questions. Manipulation processes were assessed by requiring comparison of the relative sequential position of test items, which entailed simultaneous serial search strategies regarding item order. Both groups showed reduced accuracy and increased reaction time for manipulation compared with maintenance processing. There were significant patient impairments across working-memory loads. There was no differential deficit in manipulation processing, and effect sizes of relative deficit in the patient group were higher for maintenance than manipulation processing. The strong correlation for maintenance and manipulation deficits suggest that impairments in the ability to internally manipulate information stored in working-memory systems are not greater than alterations in the encoding and maintaining of information in working memory and that disturbances in maintenance processing may contribute to deficits in higher-order working-memory operations.

The apes’ edge: positional learning in chimpanzees and humans

A wide variety of organisms produce actions and signals in particular temporal sequences, including the motor actions recruited during tool-mediated foraging, the arrangement of notes in the songs of birds, whales and gibbons, and the patterning of words in human speech. To accurately reproduce such events, the elements that comprise such sequences must be memorized. Both memory and artificial language learning studies have revealed at least two mechanisms for memorizing sequences, one tracking co-occurrence statistics among items in sequences (i.e., transitional probabilities) and the other one tracking the positions of items in sequences, in particular those of items in sequence-edges. The latter mechanism seems to dominate the encoding of sequences after limited exposure, and to be recruited by a wide array of grammatical phenomena. To assess whether humans differ from other species in their reliance on one mechanism over the other after limited exposure, we presented chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and human adults with brief exposure to six items, auditory sequences. Each sequence consisted of three distinct sound types (X, A, B), arranged according to two simple temporal rules: the A item always preceded the B item, and the sequence-edges were always occupied by the X item. In line with previous results with human adults, both species primarily encoded positional information from the sequences; that is, they kept track of the items that occurred in the sequence-edges. In contrast, the sensitivity to co-occurrence statistics was much weaker. Our results suggest that a mechanism to spontaneously encode positional information from sequences is present in both chimpanzees and humans and may represent the default in the absence of training and with brief exposure. As many grammatical regularities exhibit properties of this mechanism, it may be recruited by language and constrain the form that certain grammatical regularities take.

Fast incremental mining of web sequential patterns with PLWAP tree

Point and click at web pages generate continuous data sequences, which flow into the web log data, causing the need to update previously mined web sequential patterns. Algorithms for mining web sequential patterns from scratch include WAP, PLWAP and Apriori-based GSP. Reusing old patterns with only recent additional data sequences in an incremental fashion, when updating patterns, would achieve fast response time with reasonable memory space usage. This paper proposes two algorithms, RePL4UP (Revised PLWAP For UPdate), and PL4UP (PLWAP For UPdate), which use the PLWAP tree structure to incrementally update web sequential patterns efficiently without scanning the whole database even when previous small items become frequent. The RePL4UP concisely stores the position codes of small items in the database sequences in its metadata during tree construction. During mining, RePL4UP scans only the new additional database sequences, revises the old PLWAP tree to restore information on previous small items that have become frequent, while it deletes previous frequent items that have become small using the small item position codes. PL4UP initially builds a bigger PLWAP tree that includes all sequences in the database using a tolerance support, t, that is lower than the regular minimum support, s. The position code features of the PLWAP tree are used to efficiently mine these trees to extract current frequent patterns when the database is updated. These approaches more quickly update old frequent patterns without the need to re-scan the entire updated database.

Self-Reported ADHD Symptoms Among College Students

Objective: The effect of manipulating item positioning on self-reported ADHD symptoms was examined. We assessed whether listing DSM-IV ADHD symptoms serially or interspersed affected (a) the correlation between ADHD symptoms and (b) the rate of symptom endorsement. Method: In Study 1, an undergraduate sample (n = 102) completed a measure that listed DSM-IV ADHD symptoms serially and a measure that interspersed DSM-IV ADHD items among non-ADHD symptoms. In Study 2, a separate undergraduate sample (n = 240) completed a measure that listed DSM-IV ADHD symptoms serially and another ADHD measure that interspersed DSM-IV ADHD items among non-DSM-IV ADHD items. Results: Item positioning did not affect the correlation between symptoms, but did reveal a significant bias in the rate of symptom endorsements. Conclusion: These findings suggest that there is significant variability in ADHD symptom endorsements resulting from item positioning. This effect has implications for clinical assessment and epidemiological research of ADHD among college students. (J. of Att. Dis. 2009; 13(2) 154-160)

Acoustic vowel space in pre‐/r/ contexts: Shetland and American English.

The acoustic space available to vowel systems in pre‐/r/ contexts commonly differs from that of other phonetic contexts. In English this space has gradually shrunk, which relates to changes in the phonetic nature of /r/, having gone from more consonantal articulations (tap, trill) to approximant and often complex articulations that have a stronger effect on the production and perception of adjacent vowels (e.g., “bunched” and retroflex /r/). This paper contains an acoustic study of pre‐/r/ vowel systems in Shetland and American English. F1–F3 values were obtained from steady state vowel portions from words spoken in isolation. The acoustic vowel spaces and the positions of contrastive items within these are compared and discussed in relation to the phonetic nature of /r/ and its effects on vowel formants. In contrast to American English, Shetland maintains a trill or tap as the principal realization of /r/, and the full range of vowel contrasts found elsewhere is supported before /r/. As Shetland is one of the most conservative English dialects in this respect, the study may also offer some insight into the acoustic characteristics of English pre‐/r/ vowel systems of earlier periods and the pressures affecting such systems.

An Investigation of Stereotype Threat in Employment Tests1

This investigation extends stereotype threat research by examining its effect on sex and ethnicity in employment testing. Study 1 used archival data from a company‐specific cognitive ability test, demonstrating score increases (greater for some minorities) when applicants completed demographic items after a cognitive skills test, rather than before the test. The first experiment (Study 2) used college students taking the same company‐specific test with inconclusive results. Possible reasons dictated the design of a second experiment with a college population (Study 3). This study used the Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT) and investigated priming through positioning of demographic items, as well as high/low threat. Positioning of the demographic items after the WPT was associated with an increase in test scores.

Item Position and Item Difficulty Change in an IRT-Based Common Item Equating Design

In operational testing programs using item response theory (IRT), item parameter invariance is threatened when an item appears in a different location on the live test than it did when it was field tested. This study utilizes data from a large state's assessments to model change in Rasch item difficulty (RID) as a function of item position change, test level, test content, and item format. As a follow-up to the real data analysis, a simulation study was performed to assess the effect of item position change on equating. Results from this study indicate that item position change significantly affects change in RID. In addition, although the test construction procedures used in the investigated state seem to somewhat mitigate the impact of item position change, equating results might be impacted in testing programs where other test construction practices or equating methods are utilized.

Item-Level Comparative Analysis of Online and Paper Administrations of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills

This article describes a comparative study conducted at the item level for paper and online administrations of a statewide high stakes assessment. The goal was to identify characteristics of items that may have contributed to mode effects. Item-level analyses compared two modes of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) for up to four subjects at two grade levels. The analyses included significance tests of p-value differences, DIF, and response distributions for each item. Additional analyses investigated item position effects and objective-level mode differences. No evidence of item position effects emerged, but significant differences were found for several items and objectives in all subjects at grade 8 and in mathematics and English language arts (ELA) at grade 11. Differences generally favored the paper group. ELA items that were longer in passage length and math items that required graphing and geometric manipulations or involved scrolling in the online administration tended to be the items showing mode differences.