Latent Change Is Not a Unidimensional Characteristic: Evidence From IRTree Models

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 1:15 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Innovative Methodologies in Item Response Theory (Table 20)

Abstract

One of the key questions of social science is how people change. However, in terms of conceptual issues, quantitative social science methodology still mostly relies on the traditional understanding of change inherited from the founding studies. One such issue is that the positive and negative dynamics are mainly conceptualized as opposite poles of a single continuum. In this presentation, we conceptualize latent change as a multidimensional dynamical characteristic, with positive and negative dynamics being independent but correlated processes. We also propose a special Item Response Tree models that checks this assumption and compare it to the traditional model formulating latent change as a simple “gain-retain-lose” continuum. The results show that positive and negative change are two different processes.

Authors

• Denis Federiakin, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz

• Olga Zlatkin Troitschanskaia, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz

• William B. Walstad, University of Nebraska - Lincoln