CAT methodology is making coaching centers’ jobs a little tougher. Coaching centers teach you to answer questions on traditional standardized tests, but the game becomes significantly harder when computer-testing software branches out and adapts, testing each student differently with its database of thousands of questions.
Predictor: Cooper, Carol
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, Carol Cooper, a writer for The Village Voice, and Perry Halkitis, director of statistics and computer services for the Professional Examination Service, cover the implications of computer-adaptive testing (CAT) and its potential for the future. They write:”Further problems with computer-adaptive tests derive from the structure of the programming. Whereas traditional tests used 200 equally weighted, multiple-choice items, the first few ‘adaptive’ questions on these shorter interactive models are intrinsically worth more toward a final grade than items that appear further on. In short, getting the first three or four questions right on a CAT usually bumps you up to a range of difficulty that places you on the ‘smart’ end of the scale, from which it’s hard to fall too far, no matter what you do. Getting the first few key items wrong, however, may drop you from ‘smart’ (in the computer’s estimation) to ‘average,’ and it’s a big struggle to recover. This is the quirk in CAT that bothers the coaching centers. After paying big bucks to figure the angles that allow their students to beat statistical odds, CAT methodology is making coaching centers’ jobs a little tougher. Coaching centers teach you to answer questions on traditional standardized tests, but the game becomes significantly harder when computer-testing software branches out and adapts, testing each student differently with its database of thousands of questions.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: E-learning
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: This Test is for You: Standardized Testing is a Communal Rite of Passage. Computer-Adaptive Testing is About to Make Those Rites Very Individual
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.01/adaptive_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney