A Comparative Study of IRT Fixed Parameter Calibration Methods

This article provides technical descriptions of five fixed parameter calibration (FPC) methods, which were based on marginal maximum likelihood estimation via the EM algorithm, and evaluates them through simulation. The five FPC methods described are distinguished from each other by how many times t...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of educational measurement 2006-12, Vol.43 (4), p.355-381
Main Author: Kim, Seonghoon
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptive Testing
Algorithms
Bayesian analysis
Bayesian Statistics
Calibration
Comparative Analysis
Computation
Computer software
Economic models
Estimation methods
Evaluation Methods
Item Parameters
Item Response Theory
Keywords
Mathematics
Maximum likelihood estimation
Maximum Likelihood Statistics
Methods
Microelectromechanical systems
Parameters
Recovery
Sample size
Sampling errors
Simulation
Standard deviation
Test Items
Testing
Updating
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This article provides technical descriptions of five fixed parameter calibration (FPC) methods, which were based on marginal maximum likelihood estimation via the EM algorithm, and evaluates them through simulation. The five FPC methods described are distinguished from each other by how many times they update the prior ability distribution and by how many EM cycles they use. Specifically, the five FPC methods included no prior weights updating and one EM cycle (NWU-OEM) or multiple EM cycles (NWU-MEM), one prior weights updating and one EM cycle (OWU-OEM) or multiple EM cycles (OWU-MEM), and multiple weights updating and multiple EM cycles (MWU-MEM) methods. All the five FPC methods were evaluated in terms of recovery of the underlying ability distribution and item parameters. An important factor in the simulation was three different ability (normal) distributions--N(0, 1), N(0.5, 1.2²), and N(1, 1.4²)--for FPC groups, with the fixed item parameters obtained with a reference N(0, 1) group. Only the MWU-MEM method appeared to perform properly under all the three distributions. Under the N(0, 1) distribution, the NWU-MEM and OWU-MEM methods also appeared to perform properly. Under the N(0.5, 1.2²), and N(1, 1.4²) distributions, however, the four methods other than the MWU-MEM method resulted in some or severe under-estimation in the recovery.
ISSN:0022-0655
1745-3984
DOI:10.1111/j.1745-3984.2006.00021.x