IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jss/jstsof/v048i06.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

mirt: A Multidimensional Item Response Theory Package for the R Environment

Author

Listed:
  • Chalmers, R. Philip

Abstract

Item response theory (IRT) is widely used in assessment and evaluation research to explain how participants respond to item level stimuli. Several R packages can be used to estimate the parameters in various IRT models, the most flexible being the ltm (Rizopoulos 2006), eRm (Mair and Hatzinger 2007), and MCMCpack (Martin, Quinn, and Park 2011) packages. However these packages have limitations in that ltm and eRm can only analyze unidimensional IRT models effectively and the exploratory multidimensional extensions available in MCMCpack requires prior understanding of Bayesian estimation convergence diagnostics and are computationally intensive. Most importantly, multidimensional confirmatory item factor analysis methods have not been implemented in any R package. The mirt package was created for estimating multidimensional item response theory parameters for exploratory and confirmatory models by using maximum-likelihood meth- ods. The Gauss-Hermite quadrature method used in traditional EM estimation (e.g., Bock and Aitkin'81) is presented for exploratory item response models as well as for confirmatory bifactor models (Gibbons and Hedeker'92). Exploratory and confirmatory models are estimated by a stochastic algorithm described by Cai (2010a,b). Various program comparisons are presented and future directions for the package are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Chalmers, R. Philip, 2012. "mirt: A Multidimensional Item Response Theory Package for the R Environment," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 48(i06).
    • Handle: RePEc:jss:jstsof:v:048:i06
    DOI: http://hdl.handle.net/10.18637/jss.v048.i06
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.jstatsoft.org/index.php/jss/article/view/v048i06/v48i06.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.jstatsoft.org/index.php/jss/article/downloadSuppFile/v048i06/mirt_0.2.4.tar.gz
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.jstatsoft.org/index.php/jss/article/downloadSuppFile/v048i06/v48i06.R
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/http://hdl.handle.net/10.18637/jss.v048.i06?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. R. Bock & Murray Aitkin, 1981. "Marginal maximum likelihood estimation of item parameters: Application of an EM algorithm," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 46(4), pages 443-459, December.
    2. Mair, Patrick & Hatzinger, Reinhold, 2007. "Extended Rasch Modeling: The eRm Package for the Application of IRT Models in R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 20(i09).
    3. Michael Edwards, 2010. "A Markov Chain Monte Carlo Approach to Confirmatory Item Factor Analysis," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 75(3), pages 474-497, September.
    4. Rizopoulos, Dimitris, 2006. "ltm: An R Package for Latent Variable Modeling and Item Response Analysis," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 17(i05).
    5. Weeks, Jonathan P., 2010. "plink: An R Package for Linking Mixed-Format Tests Using IRT-Based Methods," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 35(i12).
    6. Sheng, Yanyan, 2010. "Bayesian Estimation of MIRT Models with General and Specific Latent Traits in MATLAB," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 34(i03).
    7. Stephen Schilling & R. Bock, 2005. "High-dimensional maximum marginal likelihood item factor analysis by adaptive quadrature," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 70(3), pages 533-555, September.
    8. Martin, Andrew D. & Quinn, Kevin M. & Park, Jong Hee, 2011. "MCMCpack: Markov Chain Monte Carlo in R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 42(i09).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yang Liu & Jan Hannig, 2017. "Generalized Fiducial Inference for Logistic Graded Response Models," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 82(4), pages 1097-1125, December.
    2. Yang Liu & Ji Seung Yang, 2018. "Bootstrap-Calibrated Interval Estimates for Latent Variable Scores in Item Response Theory," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 83(2), pages 333-354, June.
    3. Christopher J. Urban & Daniel J. Bauer, 2021. "A Deep Learning Algorithm for High-Dimensional Exploratory Item Factor Analysis," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 86(1), pages 1-29, March.
    4. Zhehan Jiang & Jonathan Templin, 2019. "Gibbs Samplers for Logistic Item Response Models via the Pólya–Gamma Distribution: A Computationally Efficient Data-Augmentation Strategy," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 84(2), pages 358-374, June.
    5. Yunxiao Chen & Xiaoou Li & Siliang Zhang, 2019. "Joint Maximum Likelihood Estimation for High-Dimensional Exploratory Item Factor Analysis," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 84(1), pages 124-146, March.
    6. Yang Liu & Jan Hannig, 2016. "Generalized Fiducial Inference for Binary Logistic Item Response Models," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 81(2), pages 290-324, June.
    7. Ping Chen & Chun Wang, 2021. "Using EM Algorithm for Finite Mixtures and Reformed Supplemented EM for MIRT Calibration," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 86(1), pages 299-326, March.
    8. Vitoratou, Silia & Ntzoufras, Ioannis & Moustaki, Irini, 2016. "Explaining the behavior of joint and marginal Monte Carlo estimators in latent variable models with independence assumptions," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 57685, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Björn Andersson & Tao Xin, 2021. "Estimation of Latent Regression Item Response Theory Models Using a Second-Order Laplace Approximation," Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, , vol. 46(2), pages 244-265, April.
    10. Eijffinger, Sylvester & Mahieu, Ronald & Raes, Louis, 2018. "Inferring hawks and doves from voting records," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 107-120.
    11. Michael Edwards, 2010. "A Markov Chain Monte Carlo Approach to Confirmatory Item Factor Analysis," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 75(3), pages 474-497, September.
    12. Frick, Hannah & Strobl, Carolin & Leisch, Friedrich & Zeileis, Achim, 2012. "Flexible Rasch Mixture Models with Package psychomix," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 48(i07).
    13. Yang Liu, 2020. "A Riemannian Optimization Algorithm for Joint Maximum Likelihood Estimation of High-Dimensional Exploratory Item Factor Analysis," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 85(2), pages 439-468, June.
    14. Cervantes, Víctor H., 2017. "DFIT: An R Package for Raju's Differential Functioning of Items and Tests Framework," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 76(i05).
    15. repec:jss:jstsof:39:i12 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Li Cai, 2010. "A Two-Tier Full-Information Item Factor Analysis Model with Applications," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 75(4), pages 581-612, December.
    17. An, Xinming & Bentler, Peter M., 2012. "Efficient direct sampling MCEM algorithm for latent variable models with binary responses," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 231-244.
    18. Wu, Jianmin & Bentler, Peter M., 2013. "Limited information estimation in binary factor analysis: A review and extension," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 392-403.
    19. Battauz, Michela & Vidoni, Paolo, 2022. "A likelihood-based boosting algorithm for factor analysis models with binary data," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    20. Anders Skrondal & Sophia Rabe‐Hesketh, 2009. "Prediction in multilevel generalized linear models," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 172(3), pages 659-687, June.
    21. Bianconcini, Silvia & Cagnone, Silvia, 2012. "Estimation of generalized linear latent variable models via fully exponential Laplace approximation," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 183-193.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jss:jstsof:v:048:i06. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.jstatsoft.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.