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Marsman, Maarten

Simulator-based automatic assessment of driving performance

Maarten Marsman (PhD student)
Central Institute for Educational Measurement (CITO)
Nieuwe Oeverstraat 50, B5.46
6811 JB Arnhem, The Netherlands

Phone: +31 026-352 1003 / 1124 (secretary)

E-mail: Maarten Marsman

Project financed by: Cito/RCEC

Project running from: 1 January 2009 – 1 January 2014

Supervisors:
- prof. dr C.A.W. Glas (Twente University)
- prof. dr Karel Brookhuis (University of Groningen)
- dr M.J.H. Van Onna (Twente University) 

Summary of project

The purpose of this PhD project is to design a reliable and valid automatic performance scoring system for a simulator based test for driving.

In order to design a simulator test, apart from optimizing the technical or virtual presentation of the scenario’s in the simulator, several statistical and methodological problems have to be tackled. First, because performance in the simulator cannot be automatically scored yet, assessors have to be used to obtain evaluation of pupil driver behaviour. A cognitive model is developed at TNO that learns the relation between ratings of  assessors and registered objective performance measures by the simulator. Since the quality of the cognitive model is dependent on the quality of the information provided by assessors, a sound IRT-based measurement model for the assessors’ data has to be developed to feed the cognitive model with optimal information.

The output of the cognitive model will be used to select objective measures which are good predictors of the judgements of the assessors. Then a compound IRT model will be designed where one element is the IRT-based measurement model for the assessor judgements and the other an IRT model for assessment based on the selected predictors.

When the test has been designed and the models have been developed and validated, two projects remain. First, a cross-sectional study will be performed to create norm distributions for groups defined as beginning pupil drivers, advanced pupil drivers, license candidates, drivers one year post-licences, and very experienced drivers. Second, the assessors’ and simulator assessment scores will be correlated with additional measurements of supposedly related cognitive processes involved in driving, in particular in-car performance assessments, self-evaluation of driving competence and the Cito Drive computer based tests of responsible driving.

Date of defence:

Title of thesis: Automatic assessment of driving behaviour in a driving simulator