Patent ID: 7056124

Claim:
A method for administering a constructed response assessment item to a respondent: defining a stimulus response stem requiring the respondent to demonstrate knowledge of a relationship between two or more concepts; providing the respondent at least one device uniquely associated with each of the two or more concepts, at least one device having at least one attribute that can be selectively manipulated by the respondent to change a relationship of that device with respect to at least one other device to construct an arrangement of devices representing a relationship between the concepts with which the devices in the arrangement are associated; defining a scoring rubric for the constructed response assessment item including a conceptual pattern corresponding to a relationship between the two or more concepts; observing the selectively manipulable attributes of the devices in the arrangement constructed by the respondent; converting the observed attributes into a conceptual pattern associated with the arrangement constructed by the respondent; and comparing the conceptual pattern of the arrangement constructed by the respondent with the conceptual pattern of the scoring rubric to determine whether or not the conceptual pattern associated with the arrangement constructed by the respondent matches the conceptual pattern of the scoring rubric.