This study is proposed for one-year period of research implementation. The project focuses on developing cognitive diagnostic assessments combining knowledge structures in the Q matrix designs and evaluating its performance. Implementation of the cognitive diagnosis models requires construction of a Q matrix to describe how the test items are related to the attributes. Many applications of cognitive diagnosis are based on the assumption that attributes are independent； however, it is more reasonable to assume that attributes are dependent and follow some type of structure in some application. In this study, based on knowledge structure a cognitive diagnostic assessment with both multiple choice and constructed response items has be developed. The effects of different designs (independent and structured) on cognitive diagnosis models were explored. In the simulation study, under the independent Q matrix designs, with increasing of one-attribute items, the estimation errors on item and attribute parameters decrease in diagnostic models； under the structured Q matrix designs, the performance of attribute and item estimation depended on different structured Q matrix design With two types of the Q matrixes, the performance of the expert knowledge structure was better than that of the student knowledge structure. In the empirical study, with two types of the Q matrixes, the performance of the expert knowledge structure was better than that of the student knowledge structure.
