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Optimum Examinee Samples for Item Parameter Estimation in Item Response Theory: A Multi-Objective Programming Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Ellen Timminga
Ellen Timminga*
Affiliation:
University of Groningen
*
Requests for reprints should be sent to Ellen Timminga, University of Groningen, Grote Rozenstraat 15, 9712 TG Groningen, THE NETHERLANDS. E-mail: e.timminga@ppsw.rug.nl
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Abstract

This paper proposes a multi-objective programming method for determining samples of examinees needed for estimating the parameters of a group of items. In the numerical experiments, optimum samples are compared to uniformly and normally distributed samples. The results show that the samples usually recommended in the literature are well suited for estimating the difficulty parameters. Furthermore, they are also adequate for estimating the discrimination parameters in the three-parameter model, but not for the guessing parameters.

Keywords

item response theoryIRT item parametersIRT estimationoptimum examineesinformation functionslinear programmingmulti-objective programming
Type
Original Paper
Information
Psychometrika , Volume 60 , Issue 1 , March 1995 , pp. 137 - 154
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 The Psychometric Society

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Footnotes

The author would like to thank Wire J. van der Linden and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. Terry Ackerman, University of Illinois, and Judith Messick, North Western University, are acknowledged for editing the English. Of course, responsibility for errors rests solely with the author.

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