ABSTRACT
The economic challenge of CBT is particularly sobering. The basic products manufactured by testing companies are tests that are in turn collections of test items. CBTs, if adaptive, often used to increase measurement efficiency, require many more operational items to be available than do paper-and-pencil tests, especially because of test security. Therefore, there are intrinsic problems in converting a paper-and-pencil test to a CBT. Initially, at least, the production costs for each administered computerized item considerably exceeds the cost for an analogous paper-and-pencil item. Moreover, the initial administration costs for a CBT are also higher. Additionally, if the test is adaptive, each more expensive computerized item is “sold” to fewer examinees because a larger operational item pool is needed although the number of tests sold remains constant.
