ABSTRACT
This chapter has two purposes. The first is to provide an overview of results from three item-generation projects with which we have been involved in recent years. The second is to use these three projects to illustrate a distinction between two approaches to item generation and modeling. The first two projects—the development of the Directions and Distances test and the Numeracy and Literacy tests for the Royal Navy—both employed what we term Approach 1 to item generation. We begin with an account of the Directions and Distances project and use that to illustrate a more abstract characterization of Approach 1. Approach 2 is introduced using the Analytic Reasoning project in which we are currently engaged. After this, the contrast between the two approaches is more generally discussed.
