Abstract: Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT) has developed rapidly in recent years, and item replenishing is essential for item bank construction and maintenance in CAT. Calibration of new items is a technical challenge in item replenishing, and the precision of which directly impacts the accuracy of the estimation of examinees’ abilities. Now the online calibration technique has been commonly used to calibrate the new items. Studies on online calibration for two kinds of CATs (traditional CAT based on item response theory and cognitive diagnostic CAT (CD-CAT) based on cognitive diagnostic theory) are reviewed in the aspects of online calibration design and online calibration method. There have been relatively abundant research results for the traditional CAT, while online calibration studies of CD-CAT have just started. Future studies could further explore the comparison and combination of different online calibration designs/methods, as well as the online calibration for CD-CAT and multidimensional CAT.

Key words: online calibration, computerized adaptive testing, item bank construction, cognitive diagnostic computerized adaptive testing