On Giving Test Takers a Choice among Constructive Response Items. LSAC Research Report Series / Xiang Bo Wang.

The Law School Admission Council (LSAC) is currently investigating the feasibility and advisability of administering a computerized Law School Admission Test (LSAT). In this context, using data from the College Boards 1989 National Advanced Placement (AP) Chemistry Examination for 18,462 test takers and a survey of all AP Chemistry teachers in Hawaii, this study investigated the relationship among the essay choices made by national test takers on five essay items, the test takers ability levels, AP chemistry curriculum, choosing methods, and performance. Major findings are: (1) the five essays under investigation were chosen in dramatically different ways; (2) the more frequently chosen essays belonged to the core chemistry content while the least frequently chosen item addressed a highly specialized chemistry topic; (3) there was a negative correlation between the popularity of essays and their mean scores; (4) the order in which the essays were presented seemed to have a significant effect on choice patterns of all test takers; (5) across the entire ability range, test takers who chose items selectively performed significantly higher than those who chose sequentially, possibly due to fatigue or lethargy; and (6) except for the extremely low-ability test takers, all test takers of all different ability levels seemed to choose in a similar way. An appendix contains the chemistry teacher survey. (Contains 8 tables, 16 figures, and 16 references.) (Author/SLD)

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