IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jedbes/v49y2024i5p848-874.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Comparison of Latent Semantic Analysis and Latent Dirichlet Allocation in Educational Measurement

Author

Listed:
  • Jordan M. Wheeler

    (University of Nebraska-Lincoln)

  • Allan S. Cohen
  • Shiyu Wang

    (University of Georgia)

Abstract

Topic models are mathematical and statistical models used to analyze textual data. The objective of topic models is to gain information about the latent semantic space of a set of related textual data. The semantic space of a set of textual data contains the relationship between documents and words and how they are used. Topic models are becoming more common in educational measurement research as a method for analyzing students’ responses to constructed-response items. Two popular topic models are latent semantic analysis (LSA) and latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA). LSA uses linear algebra techniques, whereas LDA uses an assumed statistical model and generative process. In educational measurement, LSA is often used in algorithmic scoring of essays due to its high reliability and agreement with human raters. LDA is often used as a supplemental analysis to gain additional information about students, such as their thinking and reasoning. This article reviews and compares the LSA and LDA topic models. This article also introduces a methodology for comparing the semantic spaces obtained by the two models and uses a simulation study to investigate their similarities.

Suggested Citation

  • Jordan M. Wheeler & Allan S. Cohen & Shiyu Wang, 2024. "A Comparison of Latent Semantic Analysis and Latent Dirichlet Allocation in Educational Measurement," Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, , vol. 49(5), pages 848-874, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jedbes:v:49:y:2024:i:5:p:848-874
    DOI: 10.3102/10769986231209446
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/10769986231209446
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.3102/10769986231209446?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. Michael E. Tipping & Christopher M. Bishop, 1999. "Probabilistic Principal Component Analysis," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 61(3), pages 611-622.
    2. Stanley Sclove, 1987. "Application of model-selection criteria to some problems in multivariate analysis," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 333-343, September.
    3. David J. Spiegelhalter & Nicola G. Best & Bradley P. Carlin & Angelika Van Der Linde, 2002. "Bayesian measures of model complexity and fit," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 64(4), pages 583-639, October.
    4. Scott Deerwester & Susan T. Dumais & George W. Furnas & Thomas K. Landauer & Richard Harshman, 1990. "Indexing by latent semantic analysis," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 41(6), pages 391-407, September.
    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. Dorota Toczydlowska & Gareth W. Peters & Man Chung Fung & Pavel V. Shevchenko, 2017. "Stochastic Period and Cohort Effect State-Space Mortality Models Incorporating Demographic Factors via Probabilistic Robust Principal Components," Risks, MDPI, vol. 5(3), pages 1-77, July.
    2. Karina Gibert & Yaroslav Hernandez-Potiomkin, 2023. "A Unified Formal Framework for Factorial and Probabilistic Topic Modelling," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-27, October.
    3. Qi Chen & Wen Luo & Gregory J. Palardy & Ryan Glaman & Amber McEnturff, 2017. "The Efficacy of Common Fit Indices for Enumerating Classes in Growth Mixture Models When Nested Data Structure Is Ignored," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(1), pages 21582440177, March.
    4. Lu, Zhenqiu (Laura) & Zhang, Zhiyong, 2014. "Robust growth mixture models with non-ignorable missingness: Models, estimation, selection, and application," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 220-240.
    5. Terry Elrod & Gerald Häubl & Steven Tipps, 2012. "Parsimonious Structural Equation Models for Repeated Measures Data, with Application to the Study of Consumer Preferences," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 77(2), pages 358-387, April.
    6. Mathias Drton & Martyn Plummer, 2017. "A Bayesian information criterion for singular models," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 79(2), pages 323-380, March.
    7. Buddhavarapu, Prasad & Bansal, Prateek & Prozzi, Jorge A., 2021. "A new spatial count data model with time-varying parameters," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 566-586.
    8. Mumtaz, Haroon & Theodoridis, Konstantinos, 2017. "Common and country specific economic uncertainty," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 205-216.
    9. Irina Wedel & Michael Palk & Stefan Voß, 2022. "A Bilingual Comparison of Sentiment and Topics for a Product Event on Twitter," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 24(5), pages 1635-1646, October.
    10. Jesse Elliott & Zemin Bai & Shu-Ching Hsieh & Shannon E Kelly & Li Chen & Becky Skidmore & Said Yousef & Carine Zheng & David J Stewart & George A Wells, 2020. "ALK inhibitors for non-small cell lung cancer: A systematic review and network meta-analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(2), pages 1-18, February.
    11. Christina Leuker & Thorsten Pachur & Ralph Hertwig & Timothy J. Pleskac, 2019. "Do people exploit risk–reward structures to simplify information processing in risky choice?," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 5(1), pages 76-94, August.
    12. Francois Olivier & Laval Guillaume, 2011. "Deviance Information Criteria for Model Selection in Approximate Bayesian Computation," Statistical Applications in Genetics and Molecular Biology, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-25, July.
    13. Raggi, Davide & Bordignon, Silvano, 2012. "Long memory and nonlinearities in realized volatility: A Markov switching approach," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 56(11), pages 3730-3742.
    14. Angelica Gianfreda & Francesco Ravazzolo & Luca Rossini, 2023. "Large Time‐Varying Volatility Models for Hourly Electricity Prices," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 85(3), pages 545-573, June.
    15. Jiwon Lee & Midam An & Yongku Kim & Jung-In Seo, 2021. "Optimal Allocation for Electric Vehicle Charging Stations," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-10, September.
    16. Palma, Marco A. & Ness, Meghan L. & Anderson, David P., 2015. "Buying More than Taste? A Latent Class Analysis of Health and Prestige Determinants of Healthy Food," 2015 Conference (59th), February 10-13, 2015, Rotorua, New Zealand 202566, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    17. Rubio, F.J. & Steel, M.F.J., 2011. "Inference for grouped data with a truncated skew-Laplace distribution," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 55(12), pages 3218-3231, December.
    18. Wang, Zihan & Daeipour, Mohamad & Xu, Hongyi, 2023. "Quantification and propagation of Aleatoric uncertainties in topological structures," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 233(C).
    19. Alessandri, Piergiorgio & Mumtaz, Haroon, 2019. "Financial regimes and uncertainty shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 31-46.
    20. Padilla, Juan L. & Azevedo, Caio L.N. & Lachos, Victor H., 2018. "Multidimensional multiple group IRT models with skew normal latent trait distributions," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 250-268.

    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:49:y:2024:i:5:p:848-874. 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: 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.