PSY8887

This seminar is designed to (1) expose graduate students to current methods of item response theory (IRT) and its applications, (2) evaluate its current status as reflected in the research literature, (3) identify areas in need of further research, and (4) provide the knowledge to design psychological measuring instruments using currently best practices for specific applied purposes. In a seminar format, the course will examine the current literature on IRT, beginning with current methods for estimating its item response functions, which are the building blocks of IRT, including the methods of marginal maximum likelihood estimation, Markov chain monte-carlo methods, and factor analysis. The research literature on these methods will be evaluated to guide the proper use of the methods for practical application. Other topics to be evaluated in depth will be selected from the following, based on student interest: person parameter estimation, item fit, person fit, local independence, polytomous IRT models, hierarchical models, special models (e.g., response time models), among others.

013117

Fall Even Year