Chapter 8: Special Topics in Item Response Theory

Michael C. Edwards & Maria Orlando Edelen

Special topics in item response theory Item response theory (IRT) has been an important part of psychometrics for at least the past 40 years. Chapter 7 (in this volume) explored the development of IRT from its infancy, focusing on the fundamental aspects of IRT as it is used in the social sciences. In the timesince IRTwasfirst fullydescribedinLord and Novick (1968), new developments have extended the uses of IRT. This chapter focuses on three such extensions: Differential item functioning, computerized adaptive testing, and multidimensional item response theory. The next section provides both a conceptual and methodological overview of differential item functioning. In addition, this section contains a detailed example exploring the potential for differential item functioning on a 19-item depression measure as a function of being at high risk for substance use problems. Following this, we turn to an overview of computerized adaptive testing. The focus of this section will be ...

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