A Course in Item Response Theory and Modeling with Stata

Book excerpt: Over the past several decades, item response theory (IRT) and item response modeling (IRM) have become increasingly popular in the behavioral, educational, social, business, marketing, clinical, and health sciences. In this book, Raykov and Marcoulides begin with a nontraditional approach to IRT and IRM that is based on their connections to classical test theory, (nonlinear) factor analysis, generalized linear modeling, and logistic regression. Application-oriented discussions follow next. These cover the one-, two-, and three-parameter logistic models, polytomous item response models (with nominal or ordinal items), item and test information functions, instrument construction and development, hybrid models, differential item functioning, and an introduction to multidimensional IRT and IRM. The pertinent analytic and modeling capabilities of Stata are thoroughly discussed, highlighted, and illustrated on empirical examples from behavioral and social research.