Person misfit, test anxiety, and test-taking motivation in a large-scale mathematics proficiency test for self-evaluation

Personal characteristics such as test anxiety or test-taking motivation might weaken the validity of results that are obtained in proficiency tests for school (self-) evaluation. Person fit statistics make it possible to identify students whose ability estimates might be compromised by estimation bias due to the misfit of their response patterns. The relationship of the powerful person fit statistic H-j(T) with test anxiety and test-taking motivation scales was investigated in the present study using data from a large-scale mathematics proficiency test that is used as an instrument of school (self-) evaluation in Germany. The results showed an effect of the test-anxiety scale on the person fit measure in specific ability levels. Considering this result, the usage of credibility functions as weights for individual response patterns is discussed as a possibility to increase the validity of test scores.