Cognitive Diagnosis

Cognitive diagnosis is a type of assessment or measurement used to identify the taxonomic group that an individual belongs to based on the individual’s observed behaviors. In educational measurement (such as a test), an examinee’s solutions to test problems are observed, and cognitive diagnosis provides assessment of the mastery status of the set of skills required by the test problems. This type of assessment or measurement is referred to as diagnostic assessment or diagnostic measurement. Instead of overall scores provided in traditional tests, cognitive diagnosis presents detailed assessments of the specific strengths and weaknesses in subcategory skills, based on which teachers may direct students to focused and effective future studies. After further explaining the basic concepts of cognitive diagnosis, this entry explores the components of ...