Overview of couplet scoring in content-focused physics assessments

TL;DR

Couplet scoring in content-focused physics assessments offers a nuanced approach by evaluating items through specific objectives, allowing multiple scores per item and enhancing assessment precision.

Contribution

This paper introduces and explains the concept of couplet scoring, highlighting its advantages over traditional item scoring in physics assessments.

Findings

Couplet scoring enables multiple scores per item.

It improves assessment specificity and alignment with objectives.

The approach is demonstrated using real assessment instruments.

Abstract

Content-focused research-based assessment instruments typically use items (i.e., questions) as the unit of assessment for scoring, reporting, and validation. Couplet scoring employs an alternative unit of assessment called a couplet, which is essentially an item viewed and scored through the lens of a specific assessment objective. With couplet scoring, a single item may have more than one assessment objective and therefore more than one couplet and thus more than one score. We outline the components of traditional item scoring, discuss couplet scoring and its benefits, and use both a recently developed content research-based assessment instrument and an existing one to ground our discussion.