Automated Test Assembly in R: The eatATA Package

Abstract

Combining items from an item pool into test forms (test assembly) is a frequent task in psychological and educational testing. Although efficient methods for automated test assembly exist, these are often unknown or unavailable to practitioners. In this paper we present the R package eatATA, which allows using several mixed-integer programming solvers for automated test assembly in R. We describe the general functionality and the common work flow of eatATA using a minimal example. We also provide four more elaborate use cases of automated test assembly: (a) The assembly of multiple test forms for a pilot study; (b) the assembly of blocks of items for a multiple matrix booklet design in the context of a large-scale assessment; (c) the assembly of two linear test forms for individual diagnostic purposes; (d) the assembly of multi-stage testing modules for individual diagnostic purposes. All use cases are accompanied with example item pools and commented R code.

Keywords

• automated test assembly
• mixed integer programming
• R