Developing Driving Task Scenarios for Developmentally Tailored Driving Assessments: Using an Evidence-centered Design Model

A systematic procedure was described by which task scenarios can be derived as a basis for educationally informative and developmentally tailored driving assessments. To this end, Mislevy ́s evidence centered design model for assessment was applied to the driving context. Borrowing from recent theories on driving and driving errors, task environment attributes were derived which may complicate the sub processes of driving and thus may result in varying task difficulty. A universe of assessment tasks was defined by combining basic driving tasks and critical task environment attributes. A collection of 55 critical driving task scenarios was selected from 39 video recorded driving lessons, throughout different stages of driving education. Results of a difficulty rating study pertaining to these scenarios including experienced driving instructors show that the scenarios discriminate well between beginning and advanced learner drivers. Successful scenario solution can be predicted by using an IRT function, where solution probability is a function of driver ability and task difficulty. Implications for assessment design activities are discussed.