Multidimensional Item Response Theory Models for the Assessment of Children's School Readiness

• In Event: 70.066 - Roundtable Session 28
  In Roundtable Session: 70.066-6 - Applications of Advanced Item Response Theory Models

Abstract

Given the importance of children’s school readiness for their later success, it is critical to accurately measure the underlying constituents of school readiness. School readiness is known as a multidimensional construct involving several developmental areas such as cognitive and socio-emotional. To take into account the distinct, but related, dimensions of school readiness, multidimensional IRT model (MIRT) was chosen. MIRT was statistically more efficient to utilize correlations between dimensions of school readiness to improve measurement precision and provided a better model fit. However, the use of the MIRT may be problematic in practical applications, as it can be unfairly compromising in the sense that a high ability on one dimension can be modified by a poor ability along another dimension.

Authors

• Sira Park, UC Berkeley

• Mark R. Wilson, University of California - Berkeley