Students exhibit many behaviors when responding to items on a computer-based test, but only some of these behaviors are relevant to estimating their proficiencies. In this study, we analyzed data from computer-based math achievement tests administered to elementary school students in grades 3 (ages 8–9) and 4 (ages 9–10). We investigated students’ response process data, including the total amount of time they spent on an item, the amount of time they took to first respond to an item, the number of times they “visited” an item and the number of times they changed their responses to items, in order to explore whether these behaviors were related to overall proficiency and whether they differed across item formats and grades. The results indicated a non-linear relationship between the mean number of actions and proficiency, as well as some notable interactions between correctly answering an item, item format, response time, and response time latency. Implications for test construction and future analyses in this area are discussed.

We examined performance on a maze-drawing task under conditions designed to simulate hand-assisted laparoscopy (a form of minimally invasive surgery in which the surgeon's non-dominant hand is inserted into the patient's abdominal cavity through an enlarged incision). The task was completed without direct vision, with participants relying solely on the image from a laparoscopic camera to guide their movements. On half the trials, participants held their non-dominant hand in view of the camera. We varied camera angle (offset in azimuth by 0°, 90°, 180°, or 270°), and measured spatial visualization ability. Both camera angle and spatial ability affected overall performance, and these two factors interacted. At 90°, having the hand in view significantly improved performance for all participants, but at 270° it impaired low spatial participants. At 0°, 90°, and 180°, the performance of high and low spatial participants differed significantly only when the hand was in view. Correlations supported the interpretation that hand-in-view accentuated, rather than attenuated, the relationship between spatial ability and performance. The findings have potential implications for surgeons using hand-assisted laparoscopic techniques in minimally invasive procedures.