Search results for " item response theory"
showing 5 items of 5 documents
Item Response Theory Analysis of the Life Orientation Test-Revised: Age and Gender Differential Item Functioning Analyses
2015
This study is aimed at testing the measurement properties of the Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R) for the assessment of dispositional optimism by employing item response theory (IRT) analyses. The LOT-R was administered to a large sample of 2,862 Italian adults. First, confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated the theoretical conceptualization of the construct measured by the LOT-R as a single bipolar dimension. Subsequently, IRT analyses for polytomous, ordered response category data were applied to investigate the items’ properties. The equivalence of the items across gender and age was assessed by analyzing differential item functioning. Discrimination and severity parameters indic…
Prediction of the difficulty level in a standardized reading comprehension test: contributions from cognitive psychology and psychometrics
2013
This research seeks to identify possible predictors of the difficulty level of reading comprehension items used in a standardized psychometric test for university admission. Several potential predictors of difficulty were proposed, namely, propositional density, negations, grammatical structure, vocabulary difficulty, presence of enhancement elements (words highlighted typographically), item abstraction level and degree of similarity between correct option and relevant text to resolve the item. By Linear Logistic Test Model (Fisher, 1973) it was found that the number of propositions, the syntactic structure, and fundamentally, the presence of difficult words contributed to the prediction of…
Estimating sexual knowledge of people with mild intellectual disability through a valid and reliable assessment scale: The ISK-ID
2021
Background Despite the relevance of assessing sexual knowledge in people with Intellectual Disability, there is a lack of appropriate assessment tools to measure this domain. The current study tests the psychometric properties of the new ‘Inventory of Sexual Knowledge of people with Intellectual Disability’ (ISK-ID). Method 345 individuals with mild intellectual disability completed the ISK-ID before and after the implementation of a sexual education program. Psychometric properties of the ISK-ID were analysed according to Multidimensional Item Response Theory (MIRT). Results Its underlying factorial structure, along with parameters derived from the MIRT (item discrimination, difficulty, an…
Assessing first-year engineering students' pre-university mathematics knowledge: preliminary validity results based on an item response theory model
2020
The importance of students’ prior knowledge to their current learning outcomes cannot be overemphasised. Students with adequate prior knowledge are better prepared for the current learning materials than those without the knowledge. However, assessment of engineering students' prior mathematics knowledge has been beset with a lack of uniformity in measuring instruments and inadequate validity studies. This study attempts to provide evidence of validity and reliability of a Norwegian national test of prior mathematics knowledge using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods approach. This approach involves use of an item response theory model followed by cognitive interviews of some students …
Ranking Scientific Journals Via Latent Class Models for Polytomous Item Response Data
2015
Summary We propose a model-based strategy for ranking scientific journals starting from a set of observed bibliometric indicators that represent imperfect measures of the unobserved ‘value’ of a journal. After discretizing the available indicators, we estimate an extended latent class model for polytomous item response data and use the estimated model to cluster journals. We illustrate our approach by using the data from the Italian research evaluation exercise that was carried out for the period 2004–2010, focusing on the set of journals that are considered relevant for the subarea statistics and financial mathematics. Using four bibliometric indicators (IF, IF5, AIS and the h-index), some…