Patent ID: 7103508

Claim:
A test management server for a test system that includes a first computer having an input and an output; a second computer, connected to the first computer via a network including the Internet, and having an input and an output; and a problem database, accessible by the test management server, for storing a plurality of problems each of which is assigned pre-estimated item parameters including a difficulty level and an identifiability of the problem, wherein the test system presents n problems to one testee so as to estimate the ability θ of the testee from his/her responses to the problems, the test management server being connected to the first and second computers and being configured to: in response to a request transmitted from the first computer, select from the problem database n problems to be marked in such a manner that allows a partial score r j to be given to the testee's response to a problem j, and transmit the selected problems to the first computer, wherein 0≦r j ≦1 with 1 being a full mark and 1≦j≦n; store an answer returned from the first computer in response to each of the problems selected from the problem database and transmitted to the first computer; in response to a request transmitted from the second computer, read the stored answers and transmit the read answers to the second computer; receive, from the second computer, a partial score r j assigned to the testee's answer transmitted to the second computer, and store the partial score r j ; and estimate the ability θ of the testee who acquires the partial score r j on the basis of the stored partial score r j and the item parameters of the problem j stored in the problem database; wherein, in estimating the ability, the partial score r j is treated as an average value of true-false responses which the testee latently indicates to latent problems to which the testee indicates the correct response of 1 or the wrong response of 0 and that are repeatedly performed s j times, and, when P j (θ) is the probability that the testee can correctly answer the latent problem and when Q j (θ) is 1−P j (θ), the ability θ of the testee is estimated using the logarithmic likelihood l part (θ) represented by: l part ⁡ ( θ ) = ∑ j = 1 n ⁢ ⁢ s j ⁡ ( r j ⁢ ⁢ ln ⁡ ( P j ⁡ ( θ ) ) + ( 1 - r j ) ⁢ ln ⁡ ( Q j ⁡ ( θ ) ) ) . [ Equation ⁢ ⁢ 40 ]