Item response theory: Fundamentals, applications, and promise in psychological research

Steven P. Reise, Andrew T. Ainsworth, Mark G. Haviland

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Item response theory (IRT) is an increasingly popular approach to the development, evaluation, and administration of psychological measures. We introduce, first, three IRT fundamentals: (a) item response functions, (b) information functions, and (c) invariance. We next illustrate how IRT modeling can improve the quality of psychological measurement. Available evidence suggests that the differences between IRT and traditional psychometric methods are not trivial; IRT applications can improve the precision and validity of psychological research across a wide range of subjects.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)95-101
Number of pages7
JournalCurrent Directions in Psychological Science
Volume14
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2005

ASJC Scopus Subject Areas

  • General Psychology

Keywords

  • Classical test theory
  • Item response theory
  • Psychometrics
  • Scaling

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