IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jedbes/v13y1988i2p117-130.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Approximation for Bayesian Ability Estimation

Author

Listed:
  • Robert K. Tsutakawa
  • Michael J. Soltys

Abstract

An approximation is proposed for the posterior mean and standard deviation of the ability parameter in an item response model. The procedure assumes that approximations to the posterior mean and covariance matrix of item parameters are available. It is based on the posterior mean of a Taylor series approximation to the posterior mean conditional on the item parameters. The method is illustrated for the two-parameter logistic model using data from an ACT math test with 39 items. A numerical comparison with the empirical Bayes method using n = 400 examinees shows that the point estimates are very similar but the standard deviations under empirical Bayes are about 2% smaller than those under Bayes. Moreover, when the sample size is decreased to n = 100, the standard deviation under Bayes is shown to increase by 14% in some cases.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert K. Tsutakawa & Michael J. Soltys, 1988. "Approximation for Bayesian Ability Estimation," Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, , vol. 13(2), pages 117-130, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jedbes:v:13:y:1988:i:2:p:117-130
    DOI: 10.3102/10769986013002117
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/10769986013002117
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.3102/10769986013002117?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
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. repec:jss:jstsof:25:i08 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Susan Embretson, 1999. "Generating items during testing: Psychometric issues and models," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 64(4), pages 407-433, December.
    3. Robert Mislevy & Norman Verhelst, 1990. "Modeling item responses when different subjects employ different solution strategies," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 195-215, June.

    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:sae:jedbes:v:13:y:1988:i:2:p:117-130. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.