Item Arrangement, Cognitive Entry Characteristics, Sex, and Test Anxiety as Predictors of Achievement Examination Performance

Abstract

This study’s general research question was: Given male and female students in an introductory educational psychology course who vary in cognitive entry characteristics and test anxiety, how do three item arrangements (easy to difficult, difficult to easy, and random) located within a 50-item multiple-choice achievement examination influence students’ total test performance? Two hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used to analyze the data. The four predictor variables and their interactions were tested for the amount of variation that they explained in the dependent variable. The main finding within the context of this study is that item arrangements based on item difficulties do not influence achievement examination performance.