1,720,996 research outputs found
Toward a unified perspective on assessment models, part I: Foundations of a framework
No full textIn the past years, several theories for assessment have been developed within the overlapping fields of Psychometrics and Mathematical Psychology. The most notable are Item Response Theory (IRT), Cognitive Diagnostic Assessment (CDA), and Knowledge Structure Theory (KST). In spite of their common goals, these frameworks have been developed largely independently, focusing on slightly different aspects. Yet various connections between them can be found in literature. In this contribution, Part I of a three-part work, a unified perspective is suggested that uses two primitives (structure and process) and two operations (factorization and reparametrization) to derive IRT, CDA, and KST models. A Taxonomy of models is built using a two- processes sequential approach that captures the similarities between the conditional probabilities featured in these models and separates them into a first process modeling the effects of individual ability on item mastering, and a second process representing the effects of pure chance on item solving
Periwinkle (Littorina Littorea) as a sentinel species: a field study integrating chemical and biological analyses
No full textOn the Identifiability of 3- and 4-Parameter Item Response Theory Models From the Perspective of Knowledge Space Theory
Full text linkThe present work aims at showing that the identification problems (here meant as both issues of empirical indistinguishability and unidentifiability) of some item response theory models are related to the notion of identifiability in knowledge space theory. Specifically, that the identification problems of the 3- and 4-parameter models are related to the more general issues of forward- and backward-gradedness in all items of the power set, which is the knowledge structure associated with IRT models under the assumption of local independence. As a consequence, the identifiability problem of a 4-parameter model is split into two parts: a first one, which is the result of a trade-off between the left-side added parameters and the remainder of the Item Response Function, e.g., a 2-parameter model, and a second one, which is the already well-known identifiability issue of the 2-parameter model itself. Application of the results to the logistic case appears to provide both a confirmation and a generalization of the current findings in the literature for both fixed- and random-effects IRT logistic models
Evidence of Weight-Based Representations of Gravitational Motion
Full text linkA hypothesis gaining increasing popularity is that laypeople’s representations of physical phenomena might be driven by internalized physical laws. In three experiments, we tested if such hypothesis holds true for the representation of gravitational motion. Participants were presented with realistic, real-scale virtual spheres falling vertically downward from about 2 m high. The spheres appeared to be made of either polystyrene or wood. In Experiment 1, participants adjusted the falling motion pattern until it appeared to be natural. In Experiment 2, they compared the perceived naturalness of vertical free falls in a vacuum with the perceived naturalness of more realistic falls characterized by the presence of air drag. In Experiment 3, they estimated the position of the sphere after a variable interval of time from the beginning of the fall. Inconsistently with predictions from physics, results showed that representations of gravitational motion were strongly affected by the implied masses of the falling objects and did not account for air drag. This provides support for the hypothesis of weight-based heuristic representations of gravitational motion against the hypothesis of the internalization of physical laws
Toward a unified perspective on assessment models, part II: Dichotomous latent variables
No full textIn the past years, several theories for assessment have been developed within the fields of Psychometrics and Mathematical Psychology. The most notable are Item Response Theory (IRT), Cognitive Diagnostic Assessment (CDA), and Knowledge Structure Theory (KST). In spite of their common goals, these theories have been developed largely independently, focusing on slightly different aspects. In Part I of this three-part work, a general framework was introduced with the aim of achieving a unified perspective. The framework consists of two primitives (structure and process) and two operations (factorization and reparametrization) that allow to derive the models of these theories and systematize them within a general taxonomy. In this second contribution, the framework introduced in Part I is used to derive both KST and CDA models based on dichotomous latent variables, thus achieving a two-fold result: On the one hand, it settles the relation between the frameworks; On the other hand, it provides a simultaneous generalization of both frameworks, thus providing the foundations for the analysis of more general models and situations
Multiple integrated examinations: an observational study of different academic curricula based on a business administration assessment
No full textAn observational study has been carried out to analyse differences in performance between students of different undergraduate curricula in the same written business administration examination, focusing particularly on possible effects of “integrated” or “multi-modular” examinations, a recently widespread format in Italian assessment. In three out of six cohorts, the written tests were indeed parts or modules of a multiple integrated examination, while in the other three, they were single and independent examinations. At the same time, four of the cohorts were assessed only by means of a written examination, while the remaining two were assessed by a combination of written and oral examinations. The written part of every examination was a multiple-choice test randomly drawn from the same item pool. Performances have been analysed in the light of linear and generalized mixed-effect models. As a result, the presence of an integrated examination appears to affect students’ performances on the multiple-choice test. Mixed models also estimate a gender effect, with females performing better than males, while there seems to be no effect due to the type of examination
Modeling the overalternating bias with an asymmetric entropy measure
Full text linkPsychological research has found that human perception of randomness is biased. In particular, people consistently show the overalternating bias: they rate binary sequences of symbols (such as Heads and Tails in coin flipping) with an excess of alternation as more random than prescribed by the normative criteria of Shannon's entropy. Within data mining for medical applications, Marcellin proposed an asymmetric measure of entropy that can be ideal to account for such bias and to quantify subjective randomness. We fitted Marcellin's entropy and Renyi's entropy (a generalized form of uncertainty measure comprising many different kinds of entropies) to experimental data found in the literature with the Differential Evolution algorithm. We observed a better fit for Marcellin's entropy compared to Renyi's entropy. The fitted asymmetric entropy measure also showed good predictive properties when applied to different datasets of randomness-related tasks. We concluded that Marcellin's entropy can be a parsimonious and effective measure of subjective randomness that can be useful in psychological research about randomness perception
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