Effect of the Medium of Administration on ASVAB Item Response Curves

Within a few years the Department of Defense may begin administering the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) using Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT). Each test item is characterized by an Item Response Curve (IRC), which describes how the probability of correctly answering the item increases with ability. One important question in the CAT project is whether the IRCs are the same in paper-pencil and CAT administrations. This paper examines this issue.