From Development to Validation: Exploring the Efficiency of Numetrive, a Computerized Adaptive Assessment of...

The goal of the present study is to describe the methods used to assess the effectiveness and psychometric properties of Numetrive, a newly developed computerized adaptive testing system that measures numerical reasoning. For this purpose, an item bank was developed consisting of 174 items concurrently equated and calibrated using the two-parameter logistic model (2PLM), with item difficulties ranging between -3.4 and 2.7 and discriminations spanning from 0.51 up to 1.6. Numetrive constitutes an algorithmic combination that includes maximum likelihood estimation with fences (MLEF) for θ estimation, progressive restricted standard error (PRSE) for item selection and exposure control, and standard error of estimation as the termination rule. The newly developed CAT was evaluated in a Monte Carlo simulation study and was found to perform highly efficiently. The study demonstrated that on average 13.6 items were administered to 5000 simulees while the exposure rates remained significantly low. Additionally, the accuracy in determining the ability scores of the participants was exceptionally high as indicated by various statistical indices, including the bias statistic, mean absolute error (MAE), and root mean square error (RMSE). Finally, a validity study was performed, aimed at evaluating concurrent, convergent, and divergent validity of the newly developed CAT system. Findings verified Numertive's robustness and applicability in the evaluation of numerical reasoning.