Tom Snider-Lotz asked, and some of the answers were ...
David Andrich: It is always an empirical matter with every particular data set (collection of items and persons) whether the item order is independent in the sense that is required by the model, and therefore that order will not matter. However, there are good testing reasons, reflected by the model, for having items independent. For example, we do not want one item imply the answer to another and so on. If students are to do a set of items, it is not helpful to independence and good testing to put the most difficult items first. It will upset the students and they will not be able to do the ones that they could do later in the test had they been earlier in the test.
Jack Stenner: We have conducted a number of [in-house] studies over the last decade on the effects of context on reading item calibrations. Context includes variation due to person sample, placement on the test, and resolution of location indeterminacy via a text analysis of all items on the test. We have found a rather consistent context effect of slightly more than .40 logits. Of course, the effect on the mean item difficulty, which is what matters most when making person measures, is reduced proportional to the square root of the number of items. Thus "ambient noise", which is what we call this irreducible variation in item difficulty, would contribute on average only .40/7 logits of error to the centering on a 49 item test.
Bryce Reeve: Lynne Steinberg did some analyses .... and found a context effect.
"Question order effects [in questionnaires] have been found to reliably influence an item's item-total correlation (Knowles, 1988), item-trait correlation (Steinberg, 1994), slope parameter ..., and reliability (Knowles & Byers, 1996)." (Assessing Performance: Investigation of the Influence of Item Context using Item Response Theory Methods. Kuang, D.C., & Steinberg, L., 2004 Annual Meeting of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Chicago, IL.)
Knowles, E. S. (1988). Item context effects on personality scales: Measuring changes the measure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 351-357.
Knowles, E. S. & Byers, B. (1996). Reliability shift in measurement reactivity. Driven by content engagement or self-engagement? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 1080-1090.
Steinberg, L. (1994). Context and serial-order effects in personality measurement: Limits on the generality of measuring changes the measure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 341-349.
Does item order or context matter?, Snider-Lotz T, Andrich D, Stenner J, Reeve B Rasch Measurement Transactions, 2004, 18:3 p. 991
Rasch Publications | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Rasch Measurement Transactions (free, online) | Rasch Measurement research papers (free, online) | Probabilistic Models for Some Intelligence and Attainment Tests, Georg Rasch | Applying the Rasch Model 3rd. Ed., Bond & Fox | Best Test Design, Wright & Stone |
Rating Scale Analysis, Wright & Masters | Introduction to Rasch Measurement, E. Smith & R. Smith | Introduction to Many-Facet Rasch Measurement, Thomas Eckes | Invariant Measurement: Using Rasch Models in the Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences, George Engelhard, Jr. | Statistical Analyses for Language Testers, Rita Green |
Rasch Models: Foundations, Recent Developments, and Applications, Fischer & Molenaar | Journal of Applied Measurement | Rasch models for measurement, David Andrich | Constructing Measures, Mark Wilson | Rasch Analysis in the Human Sciences, Boone, Stave, Yale |
in Spanish: | Análisis de Rasch para todos, Agustín Tristán | Mediciones, Posicionamientos y Diagnósticos Competitivos, Juan Ramón Oreja Rodríguez |
Forum | Rasch Measurement Forum to discuss any Rasch-related topic |
Go to Top of Page
Go to index of all Rasch Measurement Transactions
AERA members: Join the Rasch Measurement SIG and receive the printed version of RMT
Some back issues of RMT are available as bound volumes
Subscribe to Journal of Applied Measurement
Go to Institute for Objective Measurement Home Page. The Rasch Measurement SIG (AERA) thanks the Institute for Objective Measurement for inviting the publication of Rasch Measurement Transactions on the Institute's website, www.rasch.org.
Coming Rasch-related Events | |
---|---|
June 23 - July 21, 2023, Fri.-Fri. | On-line workshop: Practical Rasch Measurement - Further Topics (E. Smith, Winsteps), www.statistics.com |
Aug. 11 - Sept. 8, 2023, Fri.-Fri. | On-line workshop: Many-Facet Rasch Measurement (E. Smith, Facets), www.statistics.com |
The URL of this page is www.rasch.org/rmt/rmt183l.htm
Website: www.rasch.org/rmt/contents.htm