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Item Characteristic Curves Estimated without Knowledge of their Mathematical form–a Confrontation of Birnbaum's Logistic Model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Frederic M. Lord*
Affiliation:
Educational Testing Service, Princeton, New Jersey

Abstract

Item characteristic curves are estimated without restrictive assumptions about their mathematical form. The resulting curves are compared with estimates obtained under the assumption that all curves are of logistic form. Surprising agreement is found between the curves obtained by the two unrelated methods.

Type
Original Paper
Copyright
Copyright © 1970 The Psychometric Society

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Footnotes

*

This work was supported in part by contract Nonr-2752(00) between the Office of Naval Research and Educational Testing Service. Reproduction, translation, use and disposal in whole or in part by or for the United States Government is permitted.

References

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Lord, F. M. and Novick, M. R. Statistical theories of mental test scores, 1968, Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar