A Review of Methods for Evaluating the Fit of Item Score Patterns on a Test

DOCUMENT RESUME Meijer, Rob A Review of Patterns on Twente Univ. Science and 1999-00-00 55p. Faculty of Educational Science and Technology, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands. Reports Descriptive (141) MF01/PC03 Phis Postage. *Evaluation Methods; *Goodness of Fit; *Item Response Theory; Personality Measures; *Scores; Test Construction; *Test Items *Person Fit Measures TM 030 112 R.; Sijtsma, Klaas Methods for Evaluating the Fit of Item Score a Test. Research Report 99-01. , Enschede (Netherlands). Faculty of Educational Technology. Methods are discussed that can be used to investigate the fit of an item score pattern to a test model. Model-based tests and personality inventories are administered to more than 100 million people a year and, as a result, individual fit is of great concern. Item Response Theory (IRT) modeling and person-fit statistics that are formulated in the context of IRT take a prominent place in the literature. Person-fit statistics are extensively discussed in this paper. Also, methods formulated outside the IRT context and methods to investigate particular types of response behavior are discussed. The aim of this paper is to give the researcher an idea of the possibilities in this research area by emphasizing the similarities of most person-fit methods and by discussing the pros and cons of the methods. (Contains 98 references and a list of University of Twente research reports.) (Author/SLD) ******************************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * ********************************************************************************