Abstract
In the mid-1960s, Samejima initiated the development of item response models that involve separate response functions for all of the alternatives in the multiple choice and Likert-type formats. Her work in this area began at the Educational Testing Service and continued during a visit to the L.L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory at the University of North Carolina. Both Samejima’s (1969; this volume) original model for graded item responses and Bock’s (1972; this volume) model for nominal responses were originally intended to produce response functions for all of the alternatives of multiple-choice items. For various reasons, neither model has proved entirely satisfactory for that purpose, although both have been applied in other contexts. Using a combination of ideas suggested by Bock (1972) and Samejima (1968, 1979), a multiple-choice model was developed that produces response functions that fit unidimensional multiple-choice tests better (Thissen and Steinberg, 1984); that model is the subject of this chapter.
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Thissen, D., Steinberg, L. (1997). A Response Model for Multiple-Choice Items. In: van der Linden, W.J., Hambleton, R.K. (eds) Handbook of Modern Item Response Theory. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2691-6_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2691-6_3
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