Self-adapted Testing

This text is devoted to self-testing, an application of item response theory to computer-based testing. The difference between this and computerized-adaptive testing is that the examinee is allowed to choose the difficulty level of each item rather than the computer.

---

This special issue is devoted to self-adapted testing, an innovative application of item response theory (IRT) to computer-based testing. It is similar to computerized-adaptive testing (CAT) with one key difference -- rather than the computer choosing the difficulty levels of the items administered, the examinee is allowed to choose the difficulty level of each item. This seemingly innocuous difference in testing procedure has been found to have interesting effects on examinees. Specifically, allowing examinees to choose the difficulty levels of their test items can reduce the influence of text anxiety on test performance and yield significantly higher mean test performance.