Inferring Examinee Ability When Some Item Responses Are Missing

Abstract

The basic equations of item response theory (IRT) provide a foundation for inferring examinees' abilities and items' operating characteristics from observed responses. In practice, though, examinees will usually not have provided a response to every available item--for reasons that may or may not have been intended by the test administrator, and that may or may not be related to examinee ability. The mechanisms that produce missing data must be taken into account if correct inferences are to be drawn. Using concepts introduced by Rubin (1976), this document discusses the implications for ability and item parameter estimation that are entailed by alternate test forms, targeted testing, adaptive testing, time limits, and omitted responses. Keywords: Adaptive testing, Item response theory, Missing data, Omitted responses, Targeted testing.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 1988
Accession Number
ADA201421

Entities

People

  • Pao-kuei Wu
  • Robert J. Mislevy

Organizations

  • Educational Testing Service

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accuracy
  • Algorithms
  • Bayesian Inference
  • Education
  • Educational Psychology
  • Maximum Likelihood Estimation
  • Military Research
  • New York
  • Personnel Management
  • Probability
  • Psychology
  • Standards
  • Statistical Analysis
  • Statistics
  • Test And Evaluation
  • United States
  • United States Government

Fields of Study

  • Education

Readers

  • Psychometric Testing or Psychological Assessment.
  • Software Engineering
  • Statistical inference.

Technology Areas

  • AI & ML
  • AI & ML - Bayesian Inference