Nothing interesting in a post today .. just some random thoughts.
I was reading an amazingly uninteresting article on item order effecting subtest outcomes (nothings more interesting then the writings of statisticians!) that was suggesting that the order of items (difficulty gradients, potential for success/failure, etc.) can effect testing results beyond simple predefined test ceilings due to children reaching discontinue rules. Basically students reactions to test items can effect performance on future items. It makes sense how this can occur since previous items obviously effect future frames attitude and many other factors.
You could see this with children with low frustration tolerance and poor nonverbal skills who do poorly on WISC-IV's block design and get frustrated right from the start of the testing session (on a side note: to avoid this setting a trend that testing will be a negative experience I would suggest using a supplemental measure or another brief test). It can take a bit to get them back on board.
What this had me wondering about is how this same problem may also occur on non-ceiling or power (speed) tests that children may face in school. I remember one ADHD college student I came across who needed a lot of priming to reach optimal attention levels. As a result this student absolutely had to start with the hardest questions on a test. This would cue the student in and bring his/her a level of focus that would transfer backwards to easier items. If the student started with the easiest items he/she would quickly lose all focus and perform quite poorly.
