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A Note on Explaining Away and Paradoxical Results in Multidimensional Item Response Theory IRT MIRT

Author(s):
van Rijn, Peter; Rijmen, Frank
Publication Year:
2012
Report Number:
RR-12-13
Source:
ETS Research Report
Document Type:
Report
Page Count:
10
Subject/Key Words:
Item Response Theory (IRT), Unidimensional IRT, Multidimensional Item Response Theory (MIRT), Paradoxical Results, Explaining Away, Bayesian Networks

Abstract

Hooker and colleagues addressed a paradoxical situation that can arise in the application of multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) models to educational test data. We demonstrate that this MIRT paradox is an instance of the explaining-away phenomenon in Bayesian networks, and we attempt to enhance the understanding of MIRT models by placing the paradox in a broader statistical modeling perspective.

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