With reference to a questionnaire aimed at assessing the performance of Italian nursing homes on the basis of the health conditions of their patients, we investigate two relevant issues: dimensionality of the latent structure and discriminating power of the items composing the questionnaire. The approach is based on a multidimensional item…

When data are not missing at random (NMAR), maximum likelihood (ML) procedure will not generate consistent parameter estimates unless the missing data mechanism is correctly modeled. Understanding NMAR mechanism in a data set would allow one to better use the ML methodology. A survey or questionnaire may contain many items; certain items may be…

The association structure between manifest variables arising from the single-factor model is investigated using partial correlations. The additional insights to the practitioner provided by partial correlations for detecting a single-factor model are discussed. The parameter space for the partial correlations is presented, as are the patterns of…

This paper studies correction for chance in coefficients that are linear functions of the observed proportion of agreement. The paper unifies and extends various results on correction for chance in the literature. A specific class of coefficients is used to illustrate the results derived in this paper. Coefficients in this class, e.g. the simple…

Item factor analysis has a rich tradition in both the structural equation modeling and item response theory frameworks. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate a novel combination of various Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) estimation routines to estimate parameters of a wide variety of confirmatory item factor analysis models. Further, I show…

In this paper, we show that for some structural equation models (SEM), the classical chi-square goodness-of-fit test is unable to detect the presence of nonlinear terms in the model. As an example, we consider a regression model with latent variables and interactions terms. Not only the model test has zero power against that type of…

Conjoint choice experiments are used widely in marketing to study consumer preferences amongst alternative products. We develop a class of choice models, belonging to the class of Poisson race models, that describe a "random utility" which lends itself to a process-based description of choice. The models incorporate a dependence structure which…

The aim of this paper is to study the analysis of contingency tables with one heavyweight column or one heavyweight entry by taxicab correspondence analysis (TCA). Given that the mathematics of TCA is simpler than the mathematics of correspondence analysis (CA), the influence of one heavyweight column on the outputs of TCA is studied explicitly…

It was investigated whether commonly used factor score estimates lead to the same reproduced covariance matrix of observed variables. This was achieved by means of Schonemann and Steiger's (1976) regression component analysis, since it is possible to compute the reproduced covariance matrices of the regression components corresponding to different…

The infinitesimal jackknife provides a simple general method for estimating standard errors in covariance structure analysis. Beyond its simplicity and generality what makes the infinitesimal jackknife method attractive is that essentially no assumptions are required to produce consistent standard error estimates, not even the requirement that the…

Recent advances in data recording technology have given researchers new ways of collecting on-line and continuous data for analyzing input-output systems. For example, continuous response digital interfaces are increasingly used in psychophysics. The statistical problem related to these input-output systems reduces to linking time-varying…

After a brief review of recent advances in sequential analysis involving sequential generalized likelihood ratio tests, we discuss their use in psychometric testing and extend the asymptotic optimality theory of these sequential tests to the case of sequentially generated experiments, of particular interest in computerized adaptive testing. We…

In the Netherlands, national assessments at the end of primary school (Grade 6) show a decline of achievement on problems of complex or written arithmetic over the last two decades. The present study aims at contributing to an explanation of the large achievement decrease on complex division, by investigating the strategies students used in…

Most item response theory models are not robust to violations of conditional independence. However, several modeling approaches (e.g., conditioning on other responses, additional random effects) exist that try to incorporate local item dependencies, but they have some drawbacks such as the nonreproducibility of marginal probabilities and resulting…

Multiple regression quadratic assignment procedures (MRQAP) tests are permutation tests for multiple linear regression model coefficients for data organized in square matrices of relatedness among "n" objects. Such a data structure is typical in social network studies, where variables indicate some type of relation between a given set of actors.…