Development of test-taking strategies scale: high school and undergraduate form

Abstract

Test-taking strategies are discussed in the literature as an important factor affecting test scores and are recommended to be taken into consideration regarding the validity of tests. Although studies have been conducted for more than a quarter century, no agreement has been reached on the dimensions of test-taking strategies. The purpose of this study is to develop a valid and reliable scale of test-taking strategies for university and high school students who experience intense periods of testing. In the scale created for this purpose, we consider tests with different types of titems and focus on strategies before, during, and after the test, excluding test preparation. Two separate forms of test-taking strategies were developed for the high school (27 items) and undergraduate (18 items) levels, using promising measurement theories and models.. Results indicated that the Person Separation Index, as a reliability index, was calculated as .88 for the high-school form and .93 for the undergraduate form. This study is significant in presenting valid and reliable tools for measuring test-taking strategies and can be considered exemplary research that uses the Partial Credit Model for Likert-type scale development.