Open AccessTESTING THE LOCAL INDEPENDENCE ASSUMPTION IN ITEM RESPONSE THEORY
Author(s) -
Rosenbaum Paul R.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
ets research report series
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.235
H-Index - 5
ISSN - 2330-8516
DOI - 10.1002/j.2330-8516.1984.tb00049.x
Subject(s) - mathematics , independence (probability theory) , monotone polygon , parametric statistics , item response theory , simple (philosophy) , set (abstract data type) , function (biology) , local independence , null hypothesis , conditional independence , econometrics , monotonic function , statistics , mathematical analysis , psychometrics , computer science , philosophy , geometry , epistemology , evolutionary biology , biology , programming language
Local independence and monotone increasing item characteristic curves imply nonnegative conditional covariances between all monotone increasing functions of a set of item responses given any function of the remaining item responses. This general result provides a basis for testing the local independence assumption without first specifying a parametric form for the item characteristic curve. The proposed tests are simple, have known asymptotic null distributions, and possess certain optimal properties. In an example, the local independence hypothesis is rejected for all possible forms of the monotone item characteristic curves.