Adaptive Assessment

Adaptive assessment can be defined as any type of assessment that is tailored specifically to each examinee, based on their performance on previous items on the assessment. Most adaptive assessments are based on the theories and advances of Item Response Theory (IRT). More specifically, in IRT the examinee ability estimates, as well as item characteristics such as the item difficulty, are placed on the same continuum. This allows for the administration of items that are matched to the estimated ability level (y), of each examinee, at each point of the assessment. Therefore, adaptive assessments allow for the administration of items that are targeted to the ability level (or trait level) of each examinee, which enables the estimation of more accurate examinee ability estimates. For example, if an examinee responds correctly to item 1, their estimated ability will increase, so the second item that will be administered will be of higher difficulty than the first item.