Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Technology-based, interactive test questions are common in large-scale assessments, yet how alternative questionformats influence test-taker cognition is not well understood. In a series of studies, we investigated test-taker performance onisomorphic questions using alternative presentation layouts and modes of responding. Adult participants solved math prob-lems in three formats, each of which regularly appear in many large-scale assessments: 1) forced-choice (explicit True-Falseoptions) presented in a table format, 2) check-all-that-apply (implicit True-False options) presented in a table format, and 3)check-all-that apply presented as separate questions. Participants’ solution time and affirmative selection rate suggested dif-ferent cognitive processes for the question formats, particularly when they were uncertain of their answers. We propose acognitive model to account for the results and predict the impact of alternative question formats on test-takers. We discuss howprinciples of cognitive science and human-computer interaction provide direct implications for designing assessment questionsand understanding test-taker cognition.