Publishers of nationally-normed achievement tests usually provide the following information for each grade-level test of their test series:
1. The grades to whom the grade-level test was administered during the norming study.
2. The raw score mean and standard deviation achieved by each grade that responded to the grade-level test.
3. For each item in the grade-level test, the proportion of the students in each grade who made a correct response (the p-value for the item).
In some cases the information is provided for several grades who responded to the grade-level test. Table 1 shows a typical data set that we compiled from this information.
Table 1 Data Set Extracted from Published Values | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Test/Form Level Action |
XYZ-2 10 P2D |
Date: File: |
02/28/1989 XYZ2‑10.p2d | |
Grade # Items Raw Score: Mean S.D. |
9.1 45 25.30 9.60 |
9.7 45 28.80 9.50 |
10.1 45 30.20 9.20 |
10.7 45 31.40 9.30 |
Item # | P-Value | P-Value | P-Value | P-Value |
1 2 .. 44 45 |
0.83 0.83 0.46 0.56 |
0.90 0.90 0.52 0.62 |
0.93 0.92 0.55 0.64 |
0.94 0.94 0.57 0.66 |
We have developed a computer program to determine from such data the Rasch difficulties of the test items. Our purpose was to make available to construct-definition studies a large body of observed item difficulties. This has also given us the opportunity to demonstrate key features of the Rasch measurement model using published test data derived from large samples of the school population.
We computed Rasch item difficulties for every reading comprehension item in five of the major nationally-normed achievement tests. We then selected grade-level tests with data for at least four samples of students spanning at least two grades and plotted the four or more estimates of Rasch item difficulties for each test. Figure 1 shows one of the plots. The X-axis is the item number and the Y-axis is the Rasch difficulty for the item in logits, computed from the p-values. Table 2 summarizes the results for the five tests that we analyzed.
The Rasch model is an objective measurement model, i.e., the estimation of item difficulties is independent of the abilities of the sample whose test data provided the basis for the estimation. We found that, within the limits of measurement error, the estimates of the difficulties of the items were, in fact, invariant across groups of persons with different ability characteristics. Table 3 shows the varying means and standard deviations of the abilities for the groups that produced the data we analyzed.
The procedure we have developed for the estimation of Rasch item difficulties from published p-values and raw score distributions requires the usually reasonable assumption that the abilities in the sample are effectively normally distributed. The variance of raw scores is a function of the variance of the abilities of the sample. Our procedure determines the variance in Rasch abilities that will account for the reported variance in raw scores.
Table 2 Group RMS Differences in Estimates of Item Difficulty from Mean | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Test 1 | Test 2 | Test 3 | Test 4 | Test 5 | |
Number of Groups Number of Grades |
4 2 |
7 4 |
6 3 |
8 4 |
6 3 |
RMS Maximum Mean S.D. |
0.1439 0.0465 0.0299 |
0.1327 0.0459 0.0294 |
0.2168 0.0893 0.0398 |
0.2176 0.0904 0.0387 |
0.1968 0.0866 0.0352 |
We ran simulations to quantify the error in our estimates of the standard deviation in ability at each grade. We used two sets of item difficulties. One set had 40 items and the other set had 27. Each of the five runs had identical input. In each case, the mean ability was set to zero, i.e., equal to the mean item difficulty. The "true" ability of each member of the sample was randomly generated by a procedure that gives an approximately normal distribution with the specified mean and standard deviation. The response of each individual to each item was determined by comparing the probability of a correct response to a uniformly distributed random value. The number of correct responses then determined the estimated ability of the person. Persons who topped out (all correct responses) were excluded from the ability distribution.
Error of estimation of the standard deviation of each simulated group's ability measures was less than 0.1 logit when the test was well-targeted on the sample, but could exceed 0.1 logit when a large proportion of subjects achieved perfect scores.
When a large number of individuals top out, the distribution of abilities of those whose scores contribute to p-values is truncated at the top end, because we dropped these simulated subjects from the analysis. This removes the upper end of the ability distribution of the sample. In our study of the published tests, therefore, we eliminated estimates of the standard deviation of ability where it appeared that a test had been administered to a group of subjects whose mean ability was too high for the test.
Table 3 Abilities of the Groups Generating the Test Data | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Group | ||||||||
Test | Mean (S.D.) |
Mean (S.D.) |
Mean (S.D.) |
Mean (S.D.) |
Mean (S.D.) |
Mean (S.D.) |
Mean (S.D.) |
Mean (S.D.) |
1 2 3 4 5 |
0.000 (0.942) 0.000 (1.051) 0.000 (1.350) 0.000 (0.979) 0.000 (1.171) |
-0.114 (1.030) 0.454 (1.139) 0.082 (1.393) 0.080 (0.986) 0.307 (1.216) |
0.112 (0.945) 0.656 (1.150) 0.334 (1.369) 0.371 (1.076) 0.568 (1.269) |
-0.077 (1.044) 0.863 (1.245) 0.457 (1.420) 0.424 (1.054) 0.847 (1.312) |
0.879 (1.231) 0.653 (1.413) 0.598 (1.136) 0.836 (1.328) |
0.903 (1.199) 0.576 (1.395) 0.793 (1.093) 0.763 (1.324) |
0.993 (1.183) 0.883 (1.181) |
1.033 (1.171) |
We plotted the remaining estimates of the standard deviation of abilities of the norming groups for each grade (Figure 2). Each symbol represents a different test series. As can be seen, there are considerable differences in the standard deviation in ability determined from each major test. This is an effect of the publisher's sample selection. It should also warn test user's not to assume that a test publisher's statistics apply automatically to the user's own situation.
The continuous line in Figure 2 represents the mean of the five estimates of the standard deviation of abilities in each grade. Figure 3 shows a first approximation of the mean Rasch ability in each grade. The two outer lines show the mean ability plus and minus one standard deviation based on the mean values from Figure 2.
We might be surprised that Figure 3 does not show the often asserted, but never actually shown, progressive divergence of the less able and the more able from the mean. Figure 3 does show that the rate of increase in reading ability decreases with increasing grade. Of course, this same Figure could be plotted using commonly reported, but non-linear, Grade Equivalents rather than logits. We have done this in Figure 4. The mean line becomes an identity line, and the standard deviation lines now diverge from the mean as grade levels increase, apparently supporting the mistaken assertion that children become more different!
The results demonstrate that the Rasch model does produce estimates of item difficulty that are independent of the ability characteristics of the specific persons used to make the estimates, and that these estimates are a better basis for inference than raw scores or grade equivalents.
The procedures we have developed for estimating, from published scores and p-values, Rasch item difficulties and variance in person abilities may be applied to the similarly reported data for any test of any construct.
Ivan Horabin, Jon Poznanski, Dean Smith
Figure 1. Item difficulties estimated from 6 groups of persons in 3 grades (Example 1). |
Figure 2. Estimates of the standard deviations in reading ability, by grade level, from 5 national levels. The line indicates the mean S.D. Ability variance decreases with increasing grade. |
Figure 3. Mean reading ability by grade and one standard deviation from the mean. The rate of improvement decreases with increasing grade. |
Figure 4. Grade Equivalent version of Figure 3. "---" indicates extrapolation outside conventional G.E. range. Ability variance appears to increase with increasing grade. |
Insights from National Norms: Raw Scores, Grade Equivalents and Logits, Rasch Measures. Horabin I, Poznanski J, Smith D. Rasch Measurement Transactions, 1989, 3:2 p.58-61
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