RELATIONSHIPS AMONG MULTIPLE-CHOICE AND OPEN-ENDED ANALYTICAL QUESTIONS

Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to explore rela tionships among existing item types and three new computer-administere d item types for the analytical scale of the Graduate Record Examinati on General Test One new item type was an open-ended version of the cur rent multiple-choice analytical reasoning item type. The other new ite m types had no counterparts on the existing test The computer tests we re administered at four sites to a sample of students who had previous ly taken the GRE General Test. Scores from the regular GRE and the spe cial computer administration were matched for a sample of 349 students . Factor analyses suggested that the new item types with no counterpar ts in the existing GRE were reliably assessing unique constructs but t he open-ended analytical reasoning items were not measuring anything b eyond what is measured by the current multiple-choice version of these items.