RESEARCH LIBRARY

Educational Assessment

This study proposes four indices to quantify item influence and distinguishes them from other available item and test measures. We use simulation methods to evaluate and provide guidelines for interpreting each index, followed by a real data application to illustrate their use in practice. We discuss theoretical considerations regarding when influence presents a psychometric concern and other practical concerns such as how the indices function when reducing influence imbalance.

Applied Psychological Measurement: Volume: 42 issue: 8, page(s): 595-612

Conventional methods for evaluating the utility of subscores rely on reliability and correlation coefficients. However, correlations can overlook a notable source of variability: variation in subtest means/difficulties. Brennan introduced a reliability index for score profiles based on multivariate generalizability theory, designated as G, which is sensitive to variation in subtest difficulty. However, there has been little, if any, research evaluating the properties of this index. A series of simulation experiments, as well as analyses of real data, were conducted to investigate G under various conditions of subtest reliability, subtest correlations, and variability in subtest means.