The Development of IRT Based Attitude Scale towards Educational Measurement Course

Abstract

In this study, the Scale of Attitude towards Educational Measurement and Evaluation (SAEM) developed by Demirtasli (2002) is reconstructed based on polytomous Item Response Theory (IRT) models and its psychometric features are identified. In this context, the best polythomous IRT model was investigated which is fitted SAEM data. IRT models gives invariant person and item parameters, when data-model fit. A version of SAEM has 41 Likert type items with four points was administered to 519 teacher candidates attending teacher education programs at several universities in Turkey. The data were analyzed according to polythomous IRT models: Samejima’s graded response model (S-GRM), the partial credit model (PCM) and a nominal response model (NRM). The results of the analysis showed that a new version of SAEM, which is based on S-GRM, consists of 33 items, has lower chi-square value than the other models and the classic internal reliability was found to be 0.97. The findings of the study indicate that the validity and reliability features of the scale are fairly good.