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The Accounting Review Vol. 12 No. 3 1937

TESTING THE TESTS.

Leo A. Schmidt

Abstract

This paper is predicated on the assumption that the usefulness of various forms of objective tests have been established in the field of college accounting courses beyond the need of further argument. It is the purpose of this paper to discuss certain procedures for further testing and improving such objective-type examinations. The writer has observed that an objective type examination which has been carefully drawn up probably does not contain any higher percentage of poor items than does a problem or essay type, but it so happens that in the typical objective examination the "boner" items stand out so that they can be spotted much more surely than unreliable items of the older type. If this observation is correct, it of course constitutes one more argument in favor of the objective-type examination. The general technique discussed has appeared in some of the education texts for ten or fifteen years and has also been in use extensively by the Federal Civil Service Commission, but some of its implications do not seem to have been fully discussed, nor does it seem to have been developed as thoroughly as it deserves-certainly not in university accounting circles.

DOI
10.2308/tar-7082962
Volume
12
Issue
3
Pages
317-320
Language
en
Sources
openalex crossref

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