THE DEVELOPMENT AND CONTENT VALIDATION OF TWO PARALLEL COMPETENCY-BASED TEST FORMS TO ASSESS THE METRIC COMPETENCY OF ADULTS

This was a developmental study in which two parallel competency based test (CBT) forms to assess the metric competency of adults were constructed and content validated. The CBT development was a ten step process: (1) An extensive list of 172 metric competencies was assembled. (2) A jury of 12 metric experts, selected to aid in the test development, assisted in identifying a set of 45 basic-metric competencies (BMCs). (3) Three competency based test items were written for each of the 45 BMCs with attention focused on content validity concerns. (4) The jury-of-experts evaluated each of the 135 items for its appropriateness in testing the related competency to further assist in the establishment of content validity concerns. (5) Test forms A and B were created by alternately assigning the better two of the three items per competency to the two test forms. (6) The two test forms were pilot tested on population samples of 206 and 173 adults respectively to obtain the data needed to evaluate the instruments. (7) An item analysis was performed on the two sets of 45 test items. Item discrimination indices and item difficulty indices were used to identify 20 potentially aberrant items. The mean discrimination values were .39 and .41 respectively for test forms A and B. The mean difficulty levels were 55(\u27+)% and 60(\u27+)% respectively. (8) Measures of internal consistency (reliability) for the two test forms were .87(\u27+) and .89(\u27+) respectively. (9) Revision of the test forms included an examination of the reliability and item analysis. Most of the revisions involved the underlining of key words in items with discrimination power below the .25 level; however, all three false options of one item were replaced with more plausible distractors. (10) A test manual was developed which contains a list of the 45 BMCs, a table which identifies the competency on which each item is based, answer keys, and instructions for administration of the test forms