In Part 1 of this series on A Psychometrician's Favorite Tasks, I discussed the process and importance of standard setting-and why it's a favorite activity among psychometricians. In this post, I turn to another task that holds a similar appeal: exam form creation.
When a candidate takes an exam, they are taking one form of that assessment. At any given time, an assessment program may have multiple forms available, and candidates are typically assigned one at random. Even when only a single form is in use, new forms are often introduced on a regular schedule (for example, annually).
So why do testing programs maintain multiple forms simultaneously-or continually create new ones?
A. It's an Open-Ended, Constraint-Driven Puzzle
Test form creation is an inherently open-ended problem-there is no single correct solution and no perfect mix of items. Instead, psychometricians must balance a complex set of constraints.
First, every form must meet content specifications. This means including a fixed number of items overall, as well as specific numbers or percentages of items from each content area. These constraints are essential for ensuring content validity.
Second, the form must satisfy statistical criteria. Parallel forms are typically designed to:
- Have similar test information functions
- Peak at the same cut score
- Exhibit comparable standard error of measurement (SEM) profiles
Because there is no single way to satisfy all of these constraints simultaneously, form building becomes a challenging-and deeply engaging-optimization problem. That complexity is precisely what makes it so enjoyable for psychometricians.
B. There Are Many Ways to Solve the Problem
Not only is there no single solution, there's also no single method for finding one. Some psychometricians prefer a more hands-on, iterative approach, selecting items one at a time and evaluating whether the evolving form satisfies all constraints. Others favor a more algorithmic strategy, using optimization techniques or AI-driven methods to generate hundreds (or thousands) of candidate forms and then selecting the one that best meets the desired criteria.
Both approaches-and many hybrids in between-can lead to high-quality parallel forms. The fact that there are multiple valid paths to success adds to the creativity and satisfaction of the task.
Why This Task Matters
Psychometricians build parallel forms to ensure security, fairness, test validity, and decision consistency, while preserving equivalent measurement and SEM-especially at the critical cut score-across administrations. This work is foundational to the credibility and defensibility of testing programs. It's a hugely important responsibility. And it's also why exam form creation remains one of a psychometrician's favorite job activities.
