Careful measurements of knowledge, attitude, and psychomotor and communication skills are necessary components of testing in a competency-based approach to education in dentistry. In an effort to address these requirements, Baylor College of Dentistry (BCD), Dallas, Texas, has applied Purposeful Assessment Techniques (PAT) to the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) currently in use...

AIM The Visual Disability Assessment (VDA), a questionnaire for measuring the impact of cataract on visual functioning, was developed using classical test theory. Since this approach is limited, our aim was to further investigate the psychometric properties of the VDA using Rasch analysis. METHODS 613 patients from the Flinders Medical Centre cataract surgery self-administered the VDA. Psycho...

— Caussinus’s loglinear model of quasi symmetry has interesting connections with models for within-subject effects with repeated categorical measurement. For binary responses, Tjur (1982) showed that estimates of main effect parameters in the quasi-symmetry model are also conditional maximum likelihood estimates of item parameters for a fixed effects treatment of subject terms in the Rasch item...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Our objective was to describe the psychometric properties of a measure of team development that can be used to assess and guide team functioning in health care settings. METHODS The Team Development Measure (TDM) is a 31-item questionnaire constructed using the Rasch rating scale measurement model. We conducted an Mplus exploratory factor analysis using data collecte...

An effective response to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) incidents requires capability planning based upon an assessment of risks in which all types of possible consequences of such incidents have been taken into account. CBRN incidents can have a wide range of consequences of which psychological and social effects (possibly leading to societal unrest) are often pointed ou...

After 40 years of deriving metric values for health status or health-related quality of life, the effective quantification of subjective health outcomes is still a challenge. Here, two of the best measurement tools, the discrete choice and the Rasch model, are combined to create a new model for deriving health values. First, existing techniques to value health states are briefly discussed follo...