Abstract
Item response models typically assume that the item characteristic (step) curves follow a logistic or normal cumulative distribution function, which are strictly monotone functions of person test ability. Such assumptions can be overly-restrictive for real item response data. A simple and more flexible Bayesian nonparametric IRT model for dichotomous items is introduced, which constructs monotone item characteristic (step) curves by a finite mixture of beta distributions, which can support the entire space of monotone curves to any desired degree of accuracy. An adaptive random-walk Metropolis-Hastings algorithm is proposed to estimate the posterior distribution of the model parameters. The Bayesian IRT model is illustrated through the analysis of item response data from a 2015 TIMSS test of math performance.
DOI
10.22237/jmasm/1531318047
Erratum
In the original published version of this article, equations (A1) through (A6) were incorrectly labelled (A9) through (A14). This has been corrected.
Supplementary Material: MATLAB code for IRT and TIMSS data
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