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A Similarity-Based Smoothing Approach to Nondimensional Item Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

J. O. Ramsay
J. O. Ramsay*
Affiliation:
McGill University
*
Requests for reprints should be sent to J. O. Ramsay, Department of Psychology, McGill University, 1205 Dr. Penfield Avenue, Montreal, Quebec H3A IBl CANADA.
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Abstract

The probability that an examinee chooses a particular option within an item is estimated by averaging over the responses to that item of examinees with similar response patterns for the whole test. The approach does not presume any latent variable structure or any dimensionality. But simulated and actual data analyses are presented to show that when the responses are determined by a latent ability variable, this similarity-based smoothing procedure can reveal the dimensionality of ability very satisfactorily.

Keywords

nonparametric item analysisnonparametric density estimationnearest neighbor smoothinglogistic normal distributionitem response theory
Type
Original Paper
Information
Psychometrika , Volume 60 , Issue 3 , September 1995 , pp. 323 - 339
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 The Psychometric Society

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Footnotes

The author wishes to acknowledge the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada through grant A320, and to thank Educational Testing Service for making the data on the Advanced Placement Chemistry Exam available.

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