A Recent Development of a Network Approach to Assessment Data: Latent Space Item Response Modeling for Intelligence Studies.

ABSTRACT

This article aims to provide an overview of the potential advantages and utilities of the recently proposed Latent Space Item Response Model (LSIRM) in the context of intelligence studies. The LSIRM integrates the traditional Rasch IRT model for psychometric data with the latent space model for network data. The model has person-wise latent abilities and item difficulty parameters, capturing the main person and item effects, akin to the Rasch model. However, it additionally assumes that persons and items can be mapped onto the same metric space called a latent space and distances between persons and items represent further decreases in response accuracy uncaptured by the main model parameters. In this way, the model can account for conditional dependence or interactions between persons and items unexplained by the Rasch model. With two empirical datasets, we illustrate that (1) the latent space can provide information on respondents and items that cannot be captured by the Rasch model, (2) the LSIRM can quantify and visualize potential between-person variations in item difficulty, (3) latent dimensions/clusters of persons and items can be detected or extracted based on their latent positions on the map, and (4) personalized feedback can be generated from person-item distances. We conclude with discussions related to the latent space modeling integrated with other psychometric models and potential future directions.