Item response theory (IRT) has moved beyond the confines of educational measurement into assessment domains such as personality, psychopathology, and patient-reported outcomes. Classic and emerging IRT methods and applications that are revolutionizing psychological measurement, particularly for health assessments used to demonstrate treatment effectiveness, are reviewed in this new volume. World renowned contributors present the latest research and methodologies about these models along with their applications and related challenges. Examples using real data, some from NIH-PROMIS, show how to apply these models in actual research situations. Chapters review fundamental issues of IRT, modern estimation methods, testing assumptions, evaluating fit, item banking, scoring in multidimensional models, and advanced IRT methods. New multidimensional models are provided along with suggestions for deciding among the family of IRT models available. Each chapter provides an introduction, describes state-of-the art research methods, demonstrates an application, and provides a summary. The book addresses the most critical IRT conceptual and statistical issues confronting researchers and advanced students in psychology, education, and medicine today. Although the chapters highlight health outcomes data the issues addressed are relevant to any content domain.
The book addresses:
IRT models applied to non-educational data especially patient reported outcomes
Differences between cognitive and non-cognitive constructs and the challenges these bring to modeling.
The application of multidimensional IRT models designed to capture typical performance data.
Cutting-edge methods for deriving a single latent dimension from multidimensional data
A new model designed for the measurement of constructs that are defined on one end of a continuum such as substance abuse
Scoring individuals under different multidimensional IRT models and item banking for patient-reported health outcomes
How to evaluate measurement invariance, diagnose problems with response categories, and assess growth and change.
Part 1 reviews fundamental topics such as assumption testing, parameter estimation, and the assessment of model and person fit. New, emerging, and classic IRT models including modeling multidimensional data and the use of new IRT models in typical performance measurement contexts are examined in Part 2. Part 3 reviews the major applications of IRT models such as scoring, item banking for patient-reported health outcomes, evaluating measurement invariance, linking scales to a common metric, and measuring growth and change. The book concludes with a look at future IRT applications in health outcomes measurement. The book summarizes the latest advances and critiques foundational topics such a multidimensionality, assessment of fit, handling non-normality, as well as applied topics such as differential item functioning and multidimensional linking.
Intended for researchers, advanced students, and practitioners in psychology, education, and medicine interested in applying IRT methods, this book also serves as a text in advanced graduate courses on IRT or measurement. Familiarity with factor analysis, latent variables, IRT, and basic measurement theory is assumed.
"The discussion of several crucial IRT concepts and method with a focus on TPAs, which offers multiple perspectives on a broad topic, would be immensely helpful to the intended audience. Most chapters of this book are reader friendly while providing quite exhaustive coverage of important IRT concepts. Most of the authors are world-renowned experts on the topics in their chapters. The quality of the real data examples in this volume is impressive. [...]To summarize, this volume would be a great resource to anyone interested in applications of IRT models and methods to TPAs and inspire the readers to extend the existing theories and methods on the area." – Sandip Sinharay, Pacific Metrics Corporation, Monterey, USA
"Reise and Revicki have amassed an outstanding set of contributors to provide what will likely become a seminal reference volume for graduate students and researchers working with IRT methods. The chapters offer summaries of the latest advances and current issues surrounding applications of IRT modeling. I will include many of the chapters in teaching my IRT course." – Lynne Steinberg, University of Houston, USA
"By focusing on concept over questionnaire, IRT is transforming health status assessment. Written by the people moving this field forward, this book’s excellent reviews frame recent practical advances in IRT modeling and linking applications that will help secure the transformation." – David Cella, Northwestern University, USA
"This handbook written by leading scholars in the field of typical performance assessment has both depth and coverage. I am confident that this book will be an invaluable resource for researchers and an excellent textbook for graduate students in psychometrics." – Wilco Emons, Tilburg University, The Netherlands
"This handbook assembled a team of internationally-recognized psychometricians to provide an authoritative source on the application of IRT to many of the measurement issues we face today. I recommend this book to all researchers seeking guidance on applying IRT models to handle complex data problems." – Bryce B. Reeve, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
"This [book] would serve as a good text for an advanced item response theory course. ... The editors have done an excellent job of assembling authors with expertise in a variety of areas within item response modeling. ... I think ... this book would be purchased by many." – Leah Walker McGuire, University of Minnesota – Twin Cities, USA
"This book fills a gap not already filled by other texts because of the breadth of topics and inclusion of newer research. Many of the chapters deal with multidimensionality which is clearly the future of IRT. ....I would recommend it to other researchers and to my graduate students. ... It will make a significant contribution to the field." – Carol Woods, University of Kansas, USA
"Most chapters of this book are reader friendly while providing quite exhaustive coverage of important IRT concepts. Most of the authors are world-renowned experts on the topics of their chapters. The quality of the real data examples in this volume is impressive. To summarize, this volume would be a great resource for anyone itnerested in applications of IRT models and methods to TPAs and inspire the readers to extend the existing theories and methods on the area." --Sandip Sinharay, Pacific Metrics Corporation, USA, Applied Psychological Measurement 2015
