1. The actual administration of CAT consists of five basic steps:
2. Initiation of ability estimate
3. Selection of subsequent item
4. Administration of the item
5. Updating the ability estimate
6. Checking whether the stopping criterion has been met
They are being dealt with in more detail in the next section.
A final issue is related to the platform that is applied to administer the CAT.
Various commercial software packages are available (for an overview, see www.
iacat.org, Resources). besides, many testing agencies develop their own tailor made
CAT software, to be able to meet their own specific needs.
The whole process of developing an operational CAT generally takes several years.
Even though the theoretical framework is there and software for administering
the test is available, there are still many decisions that have to be made. The item
bank has to be developed with care, since the quality of the bank determines the
quality of the CATs. Besides, thorough field testing is recommended not to run into
nasty surprises once the test is operational.