Investigating Measurement Invariance by Means of Parameter Instability Tests for 2PL and 3PL Models. (April 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Debelak, Rudolf; Strobl, Carolin
• Is Part Of: Educational and psychological measurement. Volume 79:Number 2(2019)
• Page Start: 385
• Page End: 398
• Publication Date: 2019-04
• Subjects: item response theory -- Monte Carlo simulation -- differential item functioning -- measurement invariance; Educational tests and measurements -- Periodicals; Psychological tests -- Periodicals; 151.205
• DOI: 10.1177/0013164418777784
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0013-1644

Abstract

M-fluctuation tests are a recently proposed method for detecting differential item functioning in Rasch models. This article discusses a generalization of this method to two additional item response theory models: the two-parametric logistic model and the three-parametric logistic model with a common guessing parameter. The Type I error rate and the power of this method were evaluated by a variety of simulation studies. The results suggest that the new method allows the detection of various forms of differential item functioning in these models, which also includes differential discrimination and differential guessing effects. It is also robust against moderate violations of several assumptions made in the item parameter estimation.