Adaptive versus linear testing: selected examples from psychology, education and medicine

Most often data from psychological, educational or medical research are collected by administering questionnaires to the participants. Such questionnaires are usually made of the same set of items (i.e. questions) and are designed to precisely target the studied latent trait: this is referred to as "linear testing". However, linear testing can be counterproductive in some specific situations. For instance, not all items can accurately target the latent trait (e.g., "easy" items are not informative for "highly able" participants), so that the duration of the test can be uselessly extended.

Adaptive testing is an emerging paradigm that aims at selecting and administering each item on the basis of previously selected items and the responses of the participants. The selectuion of the item is made optimally so that the most informative item for the respondent is chosen. This permits, among others, to better target the true latent trait to be estimated, shortening then the test duration.

In this talk, linear and adaptive testing will be sketched from an educational testing approach. Then, selected examples from the psychological, educational and medical litterature will be briefly reviewed to illustrate the potentially usefulness of adaptive testing. Pros and cons of this method will also be outlined.