To be successful in a high-stakes testing situation is desirable for any test taker. It has been found that, beside content knowledge, test-taking behavior, such as risk-taking strategies, motivation, and test anxiety, is important for test performance. The purposes of the present study were to identify and group test takers with similar patterns of test-taking behavior and to explore how these groups differ in terms of background characteristics and test performance in a high-stakes achievement test context. A sample of the Swedish Scholastic Assessment Test test takers (N = 1891) completed a questionnaire measuring their motivation, test anxiety, and risk-taking behavior during the test, as well as background characteristics. A two-step cluster analysis revealed three clusters of test takers with significantly different test-taking behavior profiles: a moderate (n = 741), a calm risk taker (n = 637), and a test anxious risk averse (n = 513) profile. Group difference analyses showed that the calm risk taker profile (i.e., a high degree of risk-taking together with relatively low levels of test anxiety and motivation during the test) was the most successful profile from a test performance perspective, while the test anxious risk averse profile (i.e., a low degree of risk-taking together with high levels of test anxiety and motivation) was the least successful. Informing prospective test takers about these insights can potentially lead to more valid interpretations and inferences based on the test scores.

This study investigated whether different groups of test-takers vary in their reported test-taking behaviour in a high-stakes test situation. A between-group design (N = 1129) was used to examine whether high and low achievers, as well as females and males, differ in their use of test-taking strategies, and in level of reported test anxiety and motivation. The results showed differences between high and low achievers on a number of test-taking strategies, where high achievers reported using successful strategies to a higher extent. There were also gender differences: females, for example, reported using random guessing to a higher extent than males. Further, low achievers, especially females, reported significantly higher levels of test anxiety than high achievers, and high achievers reported slightly higher levels of motivation when compared to low achievers. To conclude, test-taking behaviour might bring additional variance to test scores, whether or not this is irrelevant variance is discussed.

The equal ability distribution assumption associated with the equivalent groups equating design was investigated in the context of a selection test for admission to higher education. The purpose was to assess the consequences for the test-takers in terms of receiving improperly high or low scores compared to their peers, and to find strong empirical evidence of potential violations of the assumption. Test-takers' scores on anchor items from two subtests were estimated using information about test-taker performance on the regular subtests. The results indicated that the anchor test item performance varied sufficiently, both in terms of means and spreads. Therefore, the equal ability distribution assumption could be questioned. Also, the estimated differences between different cohorts of test-takers are large enough to have an impact on the actual admissions decisions. Consequently, our conclusion is that more caution is needed when applying the equivalent groups design in the equating of tests. Assuming equal ability groups is a convenient assumption to make but it can also lead to systematic bias in the equating of test scores with potentially severe implications for test-takers, and this study provides a demonstration of this point.