Problem Statement: Nowadays, multiple choice (MC) tests are very common, and replace many constructed response (CR) tests. However, literature reveals that there is no consensus whether both test formats are equally suitable for measuring students' ability or knowledge. This might be due to the fact that neither the type of MC question nor the scoring rule used when comparing test formats are mentioned. Hence, educators do not have any guidelines which test format or scoring rule is appropriate. Purpose of Study: The study focuses on the comparison of CR and MC tests. More precisely, short answer questions are contrasted to equivalent MC questions with multiple responses which are graded with three different scoring rules. Research Methods: An experiment was conducted based on three instruments: A CR and a MC test using a similar stem to assure that the questions are of an equivalent level of difficulty. This procedure enables the comparison of the scores students gained in the two forms of examination. Additionally, a questionnaire was handed out for further insights into students' learning strategy, test preference, motivation, and demographics. In contrast to previous studies the present study applies the many-facet Rasch measurement approach for analyzing data which allows improving the reliability of an assessment and applying small datasets. Findings: Results indicate that CR tests are equal to MC tests with multiple responses if Number Correct (NC) scoring is used. An explanation seems straight forward since the grader of the CR tests did not penalize wrong answers and rewarded partially correct answers. This means that s/he uses the same logic as NC scoring. All other scoring methods such as the All or-Nothing or University-Specific rule neither reward partial knowledge nor penalize guessing. Therefore, these methods are found to be stricter than NC scoring or CR tests and cannot be used interchangeably. Conclusions: CR tests can be replaced by MC tests with multiple responses if NC scoring is used, due to the fact that the multiple response format measures more complex thinking skills than conventional MC questions. Hence, educators can take advantage of low grading costs, consistent grading, no scoring biases, and greater coverage of the syllabus while students benefit from timely feedback. (authors' abstract)

This programme of research uses choice test methodologies to quantify hungry broiler breeder chickens’ preferences for qualitative or quantitative dietary restriction. It begins with an outline of quantitative dietary restriction, its severity and welfare implications before discussing methods of qualitative feed restriction and the difficulties ascertaining whether it represents a welfare improvement. Chapter two reviews the factors affecting diet preferences and discusses implications for feed restricted broiler breeder diet preferences. Chapter three outlines the use of a closed economy T-maze task to quantity the diet preferences of feed restricted broiler breeders. It concludes that broiler breeders can learn a food versus no food task but find it very difficult to learn a task in which both of the options are rewarded with food and this impeded diet preference quantification. Chapter four demonstrates that severity of feed restriction underlies these difficulties in learning. In Chapter five, a conditioned place preference task to identify the effects of diets on affective state (hunger versus satiety) is reported. A method validation group demonstrated that broilers show a state dependent preference for an environment associated with ad libitum access to food. However, birds failed to show a preference between an environment associated with quantitative dietary restriction and one associated with qualitative dietary restriction. Chapter six applies state- dependent learning (SDL) to quantifying the satiating effects of quantitative and qualitative dietary restriction. However, a validation group suggested that SDL preferences were probably an artefact of the test rather than a genuine state-led preference. Finally, the overall conclusion that no evidence was found that broiler breeders want, or that their welfare is improved by, qualitative feed restriction was drawn. However, the conditions under which a preference was reliably observed and the presence of hunger – state dependent effects on learning and expression of learnt preferences complicates the interpretation of any findings. Recommendations for further research are highlighted.

EVALUATION OF PARAGLIDING THEORY TEST ITEMS FOR PILOT LICENSE APPLICANTS Objectives: The aim of this work is to evaluate and optimize a set of paragliding the theoretical items appropriate for testing pilot license applicants of LAA ČR. Methods: This aim is realized by means of the theory of testing. Basic methods of testing form the background research of this work. The items were de- signed as multiple-choice, to select one correct answer. These items were assigned to the applicants for pilot licenses and were evaluated by the apparatus of testing. Microsoft Excel 2003 was used for collecting data and results evaluation. The computation according to the formulas in the theoretical part was performed in Matlab 2007b. Based on this analysis, the results were presented and optimization of these items was proposed. Results: Three hypotheses were examined in this work. The first dealt with a rela- tion between evaluated difficulty of test items and their points value, which was assigned by the LAA ČR. The second hypothesis concerned the number of used distractors. The third hypothesis was focused on the sensitivity of the items. The evaluated difficulty of test items matched items point value in 26 % of the number of items. 92 % of the alterna- tives were used and sufficient sensitivity had 78 % of...

The main purpose of this study was to compare the strategies used by Chinese- speaking students when confronted with familiar versus unfamiliar topics in a multiple-choice format reading comprehension test. The focus was on describing what students do when they are taking reading comprehension tests by asking students to verbalize their thoughts. The strategies were further compared with participants' level of familiarity with different reading topics and their reading scores. Twenty Chinese-speaking participants at the University of Iowa performed three tasks: a topical knowledge vocabulary assessment that served as an indicator of each participant's topical knowledge about the four selected content areas in this study (law, business, language teaching, and engineering); two Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) internet-based test (iBT) practice reading comprehension passages, one with a familiar topic and the other with an unfamiliar topic, and both with retrospective think-aloud protocols; and an interview related to participants' test-taking strategies. Two stages of analysis, qualitative and quantitative, were undertaken in this study. For the qualitative analysis, all verbal reports provided by participants in the think-aloud protocols and the interviews were recorded and transcribed. Six categories of strategies emerged: general approaches to reading the passages, identification of important information by the discourse structure of the passages, vocabulary/sentence-in-context approaches, multiple-choice test-management strategies, test-wiseness, and background knowledge. For the quantitative analysis, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures was completed to determine if there were significant differences based on the frequency of strategy use and level of topic familiarity. The results showed that the types of test-taking strategies adopted by Chinese-speaking graduate students remained similar when they read passages with familiar versus unfamiliar topics. However, participants all reported feeling more relief and more confidence when reading passages related to their background knowledge. The second ANOVA employed a split-plot statistical design to examine whether there were significant differences based on participants' strategy use and their reading scores as measured by the iBT reading comprehension tests. High scorers employed strategies in categories one, two, three, and four significantly more frequently than low scorers. However, low scorers adopted significantly more strategies in category five than high scorers. In category six, high and low scorers seemed to use a similar number of strategies. Findings that emerged from the two perspectives are discussed; implications related to test-taking and reading pedagogy are provided in the conclusion.

Animal preferences in choice tests have frequently been used within animal welfare research to make recommendations about animal handling and husbandry. It is therefore important that these results are obtained in a way that, as far as possible, respects the behavioural capabilities of the animal. Stress has been shown to affect cognitive processes in animals and could therefore affect the decision making process. To examine the effects of stress on decision making, 16 laying hens were trained to distinguish between two different quantities of a food reward. A decision balance point was found, by increasing the cost of reaching the large reward, in lines with the theory of demand curves. Hens were then tested in a t-maze choice test with both balanced and unbalanced sets of options, with and without prior stress treatment. Choice, latency to choose, heart rate and temperatures were recorded. Hens that received stress treatment prior to their first test session were affected by this even in subsequent sessions where they did not receive stress treatment. This effect was not found in hens that first received stress treatment prior to their second test session. This shows the influence of previous experiences on animal decision making. Also, a decrease in heart rate during the decision making period was found, when making a choice between balanced options, indicating anticipation of difficulty. Additionally, this shows that physiological measurements such as heart rate could be of importance for future studies and greater understanding of underlying processes of animal decision making.

This thesis investigated the testing effect, which is the tendency of testing to enhance learning and memory retention. Specifically, the thesis examines the extent to which test-induced retention benefits extend to the questions as well as the answers; are these benefits symmetrical? The results in the laboratory experiment (Experiment 1) demonstrated that the symmetry in retention benefits is highly dependent on the accuracy in the initial test. For the items students answered correctly in the initial test, the retention benefit was found to be symmetrical across the questions and answers supporting the retrieval hypothesis of the testing effect. However, for initially incorrect items, the retention performance was substantially better for the questions than the answers suggesting an asymmetrical effect from testing, a result that is also consistent with the retrieval hypothesis. These results were replicated using educationally-relevant materials with a delay up to five and a half months in two hybrid studies combining actual classroom experiences with controlled assessments in the laboratory (Experiment 2A & 2B). A series of follow-up studies were conducted to examine the difference in retention performance of the questions and the answers for the initial incorrect items. Particularly, the experiments focused on investigating various factors that might contribute to or eliminate the difference in retention performance, including prior study (Experiment 3), verification feedback (Experiment 4A & 4B) and answer feedback (Experiment 5). The thesis also touched upon various issues related to the temporal dimension of the testing effect. The previous notion that testing slows down forgetting rate is not supported by the data. Instead, testing seems to provide a short-term insulation against immediate forgetting, but then memory for the tested materials decays in the same way as the non-tested materials.

To investigate the ability for animals to understand human communication signals and the communication between animals and humans, scientists often investigate the understanding of human gestural cues. Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) which have a long history of co-evolution with humans have been shown to make good use of human gestural cues. In the present study I investigated whether dogs in general understand a human pointing gesture and if there are differences between sex, age or breeds. In total 46 dogs of different breeds participated in the study. The study was carried out in a dog center in Linköping, Hundens och djurens beteendecenter. To test if dogs understand human pointing gestures, a two-way object choice test were used, where an experimenter pointed at a baited bowl at a distance of three meter from the dog. The results showed that dogs in general can understand human pointing gestures. However, no significant differences were found for sex, age or breeds. As a conclusion, I found that dogs in general can understand human pointing gestures, but sex, age or breed did not affect the ability.

No description available.

Harlequin bug (HB), Murgantia histrionica (Hahn), is a pest of cole crops. Alternative control strategies were investigated for control of HB, including trap cropping and systemic neonicotinoid insecticide applications. Potential trap crops, mustard (Brassica juncea "Southern Giant Curled" ), rapeseed (B. napus "Athena"), rapini (B. rapa) and arugula (Eruca sativa) were preferred over collard (B. oleracea "Champion"), and a non-brassica control, bean (Phaseolus vulgaris "Bronco") in field-cage choice tests. Harlequin bug could not complete development on bean, developed poorly on arugula but was found to complete development on mustard, collard, rapeseed and rapini. In the field, mustard was found to be an effective trap crop for reducing HB feeding injury on collard at three experimental sites in 2010 and 2011. Augmentation of the mustard trap crop with a systemic, neonicotinoid insecticide did not increase the level of control of harlequin bug for the duration of the ten week growing period. In olfactometer choice tests, male HB responded to plant volatiles of bean, collard and mustard, but preferred Brassica volatiles over those from bean. Female response to plant volatiles alone was weak and inconsistent. Both males and females preferred volatiles from other males feeding on Brassica host plant over plant volatiles alone, and were deterred by volatiles from males feeding on bean versus the plant alone. Laboratory toxicity assays revealed that the neonicotinoid insecticides imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, dinotefuran, and clothianidin were toxic to HB nymphs; LC50 = 0.57, 0.52, 0.39, and 0.39 mg ai/liter, respectively. Field experiments were conducted to evaluate the efficacy of these insecticides over time when applied as a one-time drench, and all were found to provide significantly higher mortality of HB for at least 14 days after application. / Ph. D.

Submitted by admin tede (tede@pucgoias.edu.br) on 2016-09-12T14:39:55Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Paulo Henrique de Freitas Miranda.pdf: 2959134 bytes, checksum: 19e3a755635c112cbe515610ba863dda (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-12T14:39:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Paulo Henrique de Freitas Miranda.pdf: 2959134 bytes, checksum: 19e3a755635c112cbe515610ba863dda (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-09-10 / The evaluation evolves constantly in search of better educational practices through the development of education. In this perspective, this study aims to contribute by analyzing reviews of multiple choice and open questions, submitted on paper and computer. Four tests in four different models (multiple choices on your computer, multiple choices on paper, open questions on the computer and open questions in the paper) were performed. The focus of the research was analysis of the notes in each model, the duration of the test and student satisfaction at the end of the tests. The results were presented and discussed considering a context of controlled assessment, interpreting the conditions under which the models can be equivalent, advantages and disadvantages. A test of multiple-choice paper presented better results in terms od test notes. / A avaliação evolui constantemente em busca de melhores práticas educacionais mediante o desenvolvimento da educação. Nesta perspectiva, este estudo propõese contribuir através da análise de avaliações de múltipla escolha e questões abertas, apresentadas em papel e computador. Foram realizados quatro testes em quatro modelos diferentes (múltipla escolha no computador, múltipla escolha no papel, questões abertas no computador e questões abertas no papel). O foco da investigação foram análises das notas em cada modelo, do tempo de duração do teste e da satisfação do aluno ao término dos testes. Os resultados foram apresentados e discutidos considerando o contexto do teste controlado, interpretando as condições sob os quais os modelos podem apresentar equivalência, vantagens ou desvantagens. O teste de múltipla escolha em papel apresentou melhores resultados em termos de nota no teste.