One possible way of reducing the amount of time spent testing in . objective-based instructional programs would involve the implementation of a tailored testing strategy. Our purpose was to provide some additional data on the effectiveness of various tailored testing strategies for different testing situations. The three factors of a tailored testing strategy under study with various hypothetical distributions of abilities across two learning hierarchies were test length, mastery cutting score, and starting point.
Overall, our simulation results indicate that it is possible to obtain a reduction of more than 50% in testing time without any loss in decision-making accuracy, when compared to a conventional testing procedure, by implementing a tailored testing strategy. In addition, our study of starting points revealed that it was generally best to begin testing in the middle of the learning hierarchy. Finally we observed a 40% reduction in errors of classification as the number of items for testing each objective was increased from one to five.