Properties Of Items Research Articles

Measuring health-related quality of life in a Chinese Mainland adolescent population: psychometric properties of the Mandarin Chinese self-reported KIDSCREEN-27 and KIDSCREEN-10 index

BackgroundThe self-reported KIDSCREEN questionnaires are ideal for capturing children’s and adolescents’ health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and have gained worldwide popularity. Responding to demands for the concise nature of KIDSCREEN among Chinese Mainland researchers and practitioners, this study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Mandarin Chinese self-reported KIDSCREEN-27 (KS-27) and KIDSCREEN-10 index (KS-10), which are short versions of the self-reported KIDSCREEN-52 (KS-52).MethodsThis study reanalyzed the validation dataset of the Mandarin Chinese self-reported KS-52. The dataset originated from a cross-sectional survey conducted in Weifang City, the Chinese Mainland, from October to November 2016. Adolescents aged 11–17 years (N = 4385) were surveyed, and sub-samples (N = 841) were retested. Statistical analyses were conducted on the feasibility, item and dimension properties, reliability, and validity of the Mandarin Chinese self-reported KS-27 and KS-10.ResultsIndirect evidence from the Small Group Pilot Survey indicated that the Mandarin Chinese self-reported KS-27 and KS-10 can be completed on average in less than 12.33 mins. Their response rate exceeded 90% regardless of the unit- and item (dimension)-level. The psychometric properties of items and dimensions were likewise found to be satisfactory. Internal consistency was robust with inter-item and item-total correlations (0.173–0.873, 0.422–0.786), Cronbach’s alpha (0.786–0.881), Guttman’s lambda-2 and - 6 (0.807–0.889, 0.829–0.896), and McDonald’s omega (0.725–0.886). Test–retest reliability at both item- and dimension-level was excellent, with intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) of (0.590–0.696, 0.785–0.842); standard error of measurements (SEMs) of (0.352–0.635, 0.949–1.949). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) confirmed their five- and one-dimensional structures, albeit with slight modifications. Moreover, the multi-group confirmatory factor analysis (MG-CFA) substantiated their configural and metric invariance across gender and grade groups. Convergent validity was robust, with stronger correlations observed with comparable dimensions of the Mandarin Chinese self-reported PedsQL™ 4.0, while discriminant validity was evident with low correlations observed with less comparable dimensions. The known-group validity was mainly supported by medium to large effect sizes concerning differences in socioeconomic status (η2 = 0.07–0.17, Cohen’s d = 0.55–1.03) and mental health status (η2 = 0.09–0.40, Cohen’s d = 0.73–1.83). The Mandarin Chinese self-reported KS-52 served as the criterion; the ICCs between the Mandarin Chinese self-reported KS-27 and KS-10 and their comparable dimensions were stronger, indicating robust criterion validity.ConclusionsThe Mandarin Chinese self-reported KS-27 and KS-10 demonstrated excellent psychometric properties, indicating their good potential for measuring HRQoL for children and adolescents in the Chinese Mainland.

Statistical properties of items and summary scores from the Patient-Reported Outcomes version of the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (PRO-CTCAE®) in a diverse cancer sample.

The Patient-Reported Outcomes version of the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (PRO-CTCAE®) was developed to capture symptomatic adverse events from the patient perspective. We aim to describe statistical properties of PRO-CTCAE items and summary scores and to provide evidence for recommendations regarding PRO-CTCAE administration and reporting. Using data from the PRO-CTCAE validation study (NCT02158637), prevalence, means, and standard deviations of PRO-CTCAE items, composite scores, and mean and maximum scores across attributes (frequency, severity, and/or interference) of symptomatic adverse events were calculated. For each adverse event, correlations and agreement between attributes, correlations between attributes and composite scores, and correlations between composite, mean, and maximum scores were estimated. PRO-CTCAE items were completed by 899 patients with various cancer types. Most patients reported experiencing one or more adverse events, with the most prevalent being fatigue (87.7%), sad/unhappy feelings (66.0%), anxiety (63.6%), pain (63.2%), insomnia (61.8%), and dry mouth (60.0%). Attributes were moderately to strongly correlated within an adverse event (r = 0.53 to 0.77, all p < 0.001) but not fully concordant (κweighted = 0.26 to 0.60, all p < 0.001), with interference demonstrating lowest mean scores and prevalence among attributes of the same adverse event. Attributes were moderately to strongly correlated with composite scores (r = 0.67 to 0.97, all p < 0.001). Composite scores were moderately to strongly correlated with mean and maximum scores for the same adverse event (r = 0.69 to 0.94, all p < 0.001). Correlations between composite scores of different adverse events varied widely (r = 0.04 to 0.68) but were moderate to strong for conceptually related adverse events. Results provide evidence for PRO-CTCAE administration and reporting recommendations that the full complement of attributes be administered for each adverse event, and that attributes as well as summary scores be reported.

Development and Validation of a Patient-Reported Outcome Measure of the Impact of Chronic Hand Eczema on Health-Related Quality of Life: the Hand Eczema Impact Scale (HEIS).

Chronic Hand Eczema (CHE) is an inflammatory skin disease that causes significant impact on health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The Hand Eczema Impact Scale (HEIS) is a new patient-reported outcome(PRO) measure designed to assess the impact of CHE on key domains of HRQoL. This study aimed to develop and evaluate content and psychometric validity of the HEIS. The HEIS was initially developed on the basis of a literature review and concept elicitation interviews. Qualitative cognitive debriefing interviews (n = 20) were conducted with patients with CHE to assess relevance and understanding of items, response options, and recall period. Psychometric properties (item performance, dimensionality, reliability, validity, responsiveness, and estimation of meaningful change thresholds) were then assessed using data (n = 258) from a phase 2b trial (NCT03683719). Cognitive debriefing confirmed all items were understood and relevant to patients. Inter-item correlations (all > 0.50) and confirmatory factor analysis (factor loadings ≥ 0.80) supported unidimensionality of the HEIS score, and mostly provided support for the HEIS Proximal Daily Activity Limitations (PDAL) score, with only one item loading below the prespecified threshold. Item properties and previous qualitative work supported retaining this item in the total score but removed from the HEIS PDAL domain. Internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha ≥ 0.89) and test-retest reliability (intra-class correlation coefficient ≥ 0.79) results were very strong. Strong correlations with concurrent measures (0.66-0.87) and significant differences between severity groups (p < 0.001) supported construct validity. Large effect sizes for mean change scores in participants that improved and significant differences between groups indicated ability to detect change. Anchor-based analyses supported within-individual responder definitions of ≥ 1.3 points for improvements in both HEIS score and HEIS PDAL score (covering three items) and of ≥ 1.5 points for HEIS embarrassment with the appearance of hands (Emb) score (covering two items). The 9-item HEIS is the first CHE-specific PROmeasure developed and validated according to regulatory guidance for assessment of the impact of CHE on key domains of HRQoL. This article provides evidence of strong content and psychometric validity and shows improvements of ≥ 1.3 points in HEIS score and HEIS PDAL score, and improvements of ≥ 1.5 points in HEIS Emb score represent clinically meaningful, important changes. NCT03683719.

Psychometric evaluation of the Swedish version of ages and stages questionnaire social-emotional: second edition for parents of children 18 months of age

BackgroundSocial and emotional development are important aspects of young children’s well-being but can be difficult to assess during the first years of life. The Ages and Stages Questionnaire: Social-Emotional Second Edition (ASQ:SE-2) is a parent-rated assessment tool for child socioemotional development between 1 and 72 months of age. In this study, we examined the psychometric properties of this instrument in 18-month-old Swedish children.MethodsData from 586 Swedish-speaking parents of 18-month-old children were included. In addition to the ASQ:SE-2, parents also completed the Social-Emotional Assessment/Evaluation Measure (SEAM), and the child’s socioemotional development was assessed by a nurse at the Child Health Services. We used exploratory factor analysis and Rasch methodology to explore dimensionality and item properties of the ASQ:SE-2. Furthermore, we used Pearson and Spearman rank correlations to study associations with the SEAM and the nurse assessment.ResultsAn exploratory factor analysis suggested a one-factor model for the ASQ:SE-2 items. However, several items showed weak factor loadings, and a final scale including 18 of the original 29 items was further explored. The Rasch analysis revealed problems with targeting, and the final scale showed acceptable reliability only in the 22% with the highest levels of socioemotional difficulties. The total score of the final version showed a strong association with the parent-rated SEAM but a weak association with the nurse observations. We labeled the reduced 18-item scale Social Interaction.ConclusionsThe results of this study highlight that the original Swedish version of the ASQ:SE-2 for 18-month-old children may not be an adequate tool for assessing social and emotional competencies in a normal population since acceptable reliability was reached only in children with the greatest difficulties (above the 78th percentile). In conclusion, the suggested 18-item version works best either as a screening instrument for problems with social interaction or as a continuous measure of such problems in children with high levels of social interaction difficulties.

Correlation of a single-item measure of financial toxicity with overall score.

351 Background: Financial toxicity (FT) refers to the financial burden experienced by patients due to direct and indirect costs associated with their medical care. It has been linked to higher symptom burden, poorer clinical outcomes, quality of life, and psychological well-being and has been shown to extend beyond diagnosis and treatment. Despite the availability of validated tools to measure FT, no single-item screening measure has been validated yet. In the context where time constraints are the most cited reason for patients declining FT surveys, it is crucial to develop efficient tools that allow us to routinely screen patients for FT at different stages of their care. We, therefore, sought to establish item 12 (“My illness has been a financial hardship to my family and me”) of the Comprehensive Score for Financial Toxicity (COST) measure as a well-functioning screening item for FT. Methods: In this secondary analysis of 579 patients who completed a survey on financial toxicity screening preferences, items 1-11 were scored (including reversing 7 items per the version 2 scoring guidelines), with lower scores indicating worse FT. Analyses focused on establishing a correlation with the total score as well as examining item properties. Item 12 was also reverse scored, so lower scores mean greater hardship. Results: Item 12 had an item-total correlation of r = 0.63 (adjusted item-total correlation = .531). Similarly, a linear model with item 12 score as a predictor and total score as the outcome showed that increases of 1 point on item 12 is associated with around 3 total points on the full scale (b = 3.35, p &lt; .001, adjusted R 2 = 0.28. Finally, item analysis with the graded-response item response theory (IRT) model showed very good discrimination (a = 2.10) for item 12, indicating that it can reliably distinguish between low and high FT in patients. IRT results also showed that the item functions as a nearly binary item with responses of “quite a bit” and “very much” corresponding to a high probability of high FT, while responses of “somewhat,” “a little bit,” and “not at all” corresponding to a high probability of low FT. Conclusions: This is the first validation of a single-item screening measure for RT. Overall, these results illustrate that item 12 is a good candidate for a single-item screener, with “quite a bit” and “very much” responses indicating a high likelihood of high FT.

A Study on Recycling and Remodeling of Old Things by College Students

With the development of modern society, the demand for college students’ goods is increasing, and the replacement of goods is also accelerating gradually. This situation has led to a common dilemma of how to handle old items with sentimental value that cannot be preserved. Therefore, recycling, remodeling, and preservation of these old items become the central theme of this study. The paper describes the recycling of old objects, categorizing them by their uses, shapes, and materials, and designing trendy toys that match the original properties of the original items. The paper also talks about actively developing and utilizing the waste resources in life.

Multi-Behavior Recommendation with Personalized Directed Acyclic Behavior Graphs

A well-developed recommendation system can not only leverage multi-typed interactions (such as page view, add-to-cart, and purchase) to better identify user preferences, but also demonstrate high performance, low complexity, and strong interpretability. However, many existing solutions for multi-behavior recommendation fall short of intuitive modeling of real-world scenarios, leading to overly complex models with massive parameters and cumbersome components. In particular, they share two critical limitations: (1) Some pioneering models are built upon the strict assumption of cascade effects across behaviors, which contradicts multifarious behavior paths in practical applications. (2) Existing approaches fail to explicitly capture the unique idiosyncrasies of users and even neglect the inherent nature of items involved in the multi-behavior interactions. To this end, we propose a novel Directed Acyclic Graph Convolutional Network (DA-GCN) for the multi-behavior recommendation task. Specifically, we pinpoint the partial order relations within the monotonic behavior chain and extend it to personalized directed acyclic behavior graphs to exploit behavior dependencies. Then, a GCN-based directed edge encoder is employed to distill rich collaborative signals embodied by each directed edge. In light of the information flows over the directed acyclic structure, we propose an attentive aggregation module to gather messages from all potential antecedent behaviors, representing distinct perspectives to understand the terminated behavior. Thus, we obtain comprehensive representations for the follow-up behavior through learnable distributions over its preceding behaviors, explicitly reflecting personalized interactive patterns of users and underlying properties of items simultaneously. Finally, we design a customized multi-task learning objective for flexible joint optimization. Extensive experiments on public benchmarking datasets fully demonstrate the superiority of DA-GCN with significant performance improvement and computational efficiency over a wide range of state-of-the-art methods. Our code is available at https://github.com/xizhu1022/DA-GCN .

Assessing the Psychometric Properties of Quality Experience in Undergraduate Research Using Item Response Theory

Undergraduate research, recognized as one of the High-Impact Practices (HIPs), has demonstrated a positive association with diverse student learning outcomes. Understanding the pivotal quality factors essential for its efficacy is important for enhancing student success. This study evaluates the psychometric properties of survey items employed to gauge the quality of undergraduate research, including alignment with Kuh and O’Donnell’s (2013) eight HIP characteristics, alongside assessments of reliability, validity, and generalizability across demographic groups. The study assesses the validity and reliability of these measures at both the scale and item levels using data from the National Survey of Student Engagement’s (NSSE) HIP Quality Topical Module. The methodological approaches employed include Exploratory Factor Analysis, Parallel Analysis, Item Response Theory, and Differential Item Functioning (DIF). Our findings uncover a misalignment between NSSE’s HIP Quality module items and HIP characteristics, leading to the identification of seven subscales instead of eight. Nevertheless, four subscales—Reflective and Integrative Learning, Real-World Applications, Interactions with Others, and High-Performance Expectations—emerge as valid indicators of undergraduate research experiences. While specific items yield valuable insights at the item level, refinement is recommended for others. Despite the identification of two items exhibiting DIF, their negligible effect sizes suggest that major revisions are unwarranted solely on DIF grounds. This study offers recommendations for item refinement, including the incorporation of new items, wording updates, and tailored utilization of assessment tools within educational institutions. These recommendations are intended to empower educators and researchers to effectively capture the quality dimensions of students’ undergraduate research experiences, thereby fostering their academic success.

Optimizing a national examination for medical undergraduates via modern automated test assembly approaches

BackgroundAutomated test assembly (ATA) represents a modern methodology that employs data science optimization on computer platforms to automatically create test form, thereby significantly improving the efficiency and accuracy of test assembly procedures. In the realm of medical education, large-scale high-stakes assessments often necessitate lengthy tests, leading to elevated costs in various dimensions (such as examinee fatigue and expenses associated with item development). This study aims to augment the design of the medical education assessments by leveraging modern ATA approaches.MethodsTo achieve the objective, a four-step process employing psychometric methodologies was used to calibrate and analyze the item pool of the Standardized Competence Test for Clinical Medicine Undergraduates (SCTCMU), a nationwide summative test comprising 300 multiple-choice questions (MCQ) in China. Subsequently, two modern ATA approaches were employed to determine the optimal item combination, accounting for both statistical and content requirements specified in the test blueprint. The qualities of the assembled test form, generated using modern ATA approaches, underwent meticulous evaluation.ResultsThrough an exploration of the psychometric properties of the SCTCMU as a foundational step, the evaluation revealed commendable quality in the item properties. Furthermore, the evaluation of the quality of assembled test form using modern ATA approaches indicated the ability to ascertain the optimal test length within the predefined measurement precision. Specifically, this investigation demonstrates that the application of modern ATA approaches can substantially reduce the test length of assembled test form, while simultaneously maintaining the required statistical and content standards specified in the test blueprint.ConclusionsThis study harnessed modern ATA approaches to facilitate the automatic construction of test form, thereby significantly enhancing the efficiency and precision of test assembly procedures. The utilization of modern ATA approaches offers medical educators a valuable tool to enhance the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of medical education assessment.

Complexity and Difficulty in Second Language Acquisition: A Theoretical and Methodological Overview

AbstractThis article presents a theoretical review of and methodological guidelines for the study of two key notions in second language acquisition research, complexity and difficulty. The term complexity has gained considerable currency over the past decades and has taken on a wide range of meanings. We argue for a more restricted interpretation, focusing exclusively on formal, structural properties of linguistic items. The less employed term difficulty in our account refers to the cognitive costs associated with learning and using such items. On the basis of our theoretical definitions, we critically review measures operationalizing these constructs and discuss their strengths, limitations, and potential applicability to second language research, in order to establish a small set of measures to be used routinely in the interest of replicability and knowledge accumulation in the field. In addition, we discuss the relationship between complexity and difficulty and the associated notions of proficiency and development.

Reliability and Validity Evidence for an Adapted Affect Knowledge Test for Preschool Children Using Rasch Theory

ABSTRACT Research Findings: Emotion knowledge is one facet of social and emotional learning (SEL) that emerges in early childhood. Various interventions and measures target preschoolers’ emotional skills to bolster these foundational competencies prior to formal schooling. One measure of emotion knowledge specifically with preschool children is the Affect Knowledge Test (AKT). Despite decades of use and adaptations for different modalities and populations of preschoolers, no study has previously examined the psychometric properties of independent items on the AKT. This study utilized Rasch procedures to analyze how items on the AKT function across a sample of 193 preschoolers (mean age = 49.7 months). Analyses revealed that a unidimensional Rasch model fit well to the item data. Age was a significant predictor of affect knowledge, with older children having increased affect knowledge scores. Results support previous findings of a ceiling effect for older children. Practice and Policy: Our study adds to the empirical understanding of the AKT and its use as a tool to measure emotion knowledge in young children. The children’s scores on the AKT had adequate reliability, supporting the use of AKT for low stakes research-based purposes.

Undergraduates’ workplace learning in health sciences education: psychometric properties of single-item measures

BackgroundUndergraduates’ workplace learning is an important part of health sciences education. Educational psychology research considers many different aspects of self-regulated learning at the workplace, including cognition, motivation, emotions, and context. Multivariate longitudinal and diary studies in this field require fewer items than alternatives or even a single item per construct and can reveal the sub-processes of workplace learning and contribute to a better understanding of students’ learning. Short instruments are necessary for application in workplace settings, especially stressful ones, to mitigate survey fatigue. The present study aimed to assess the psychometric properties of single items measuring various aspects of workplace learning.MethodsTwenty-nine single items selected from the Workplace Learning Inventory in Health Sciences Education were analyzed for reliability, information reproduction, and relationships within the nomological network. The authors additionally analyzed four generally formulated single items’ relationships with the full Workplace Learning Inventory scales and external criteria within the nomological network. Participants were 214 ninth- or tenth-semester veterinary medicine students in Austria and Germany who were learning at varied workplaces during the winter semester of 2021/2022.ResultsOf the 29 single items selected from existing scales, 27 showed sufficient reliability, but mixed results were obtained regarding validity. Although the items’ relationships within the nomological network were similar to those of the full scales, information reproduction was insufficient for most items. The four general single items showed acceptable validity, but the reliability of these measures of states could not be assessed.ConclusionsThis paper reported findings on the psychometric properties of single items for undergraduates’ workplace learning in health science education. The findings are crucial for deciding whether to use scales versus single-item measures in future studies. By applying the findings, researchers can be more economical in their workplace learning data collection and can include more constructs.

Revisiting the English Short Measure for Adult Playfulness (SMAP): An Investigation of Reliability, Validity, and Cross-Cultural Comparisons

Adult playfulness describes the personality of the quick initiation and strong intensity of enjoyable experiences coupled with the frequency of engaging in playful behaviors. In addition to examining the reliability and validity of the Short Measure for Adult Playfulness (SMAP), we compared the psychometric properties of the SMAP across (a) 4- and 7-point answer formats; (b) German and English language versions; and (c) gender. The SMAP and criterion validity measures were distributed across three independent samples from Canada (N total = 1,177) and a German sample (N = 660). Results supported a unidimensional solution with strong factor loadings for all items (>.50 across all samples) and high test-retest reliability (r = .67, BF10>100). In item response theory analyses, high discrimination parameters were found across the latent continuum. Although both the four-point and seven-point Likert scale versions showed robust item properties, the seven-point Likert scale version yielded more precise measurement of higher playfulness (θ > 1.50). No significant differential item functioning was located across gender or language. Finally, results supported external construct validity via associations with broad personality traits, humor, and orientations to happiness. The present investigation provides support for the reliability and validity of the English SMAP for concise adult playfulness measurement.

A picture is worth a thousand words: Framing of food choice options affects decision conflict and mid-fontal theta in food choice task

In food choices, conflict arises when choosing between a healthy, but less tasty food item and a tasty, but less healthy food item. The underlying assumption is that people trade-off the health and taste properties of food items to reach a decision. To probe this assumption, we presented food items either as colored images (image condition, e.g. photograph of a granola bar) or as pre-matched percentages of taste and health values (text condition, e.g., 20% healthy and 80% tasty). We recorded choices, response times and electroencephalography activity to calculate mid-frontal theta power as a marker of conflict. At the behavioral level, we found higher response times for healthy compared to unhealthy choices, and for difficult compared to easy decisions in both conditions, indicating the experience of a decision conflict. At the neural level, mid-frontal theta power was higher for healthy choices than unhealthy choices and difficult choices compared to easy choices, but only in the image condition. Those results suggest that either conflict type and/or decision strategies differ between the image and text conditions. The present results can be helpful in understanding how dietary decisions can be influenced towards healthier food choices.

Psychometric properties of MG-ADL items and MG-ADL score: An assessment of distributional characteristics, validity and factor structure in two large datasets

BackgroundThe Myasthenia Gravis–Activities of Daily Living scale (MG-ADL) is an 8-item outcome measure to assess symptoms and functional limitations in myasthenia gravis (MG) patients. The MG-ADL score is an equally weighted level sum score that is used as primary outcome measures in clinical trials, in clinical practice, and as an end-point in health economic evaluation. This data analysis aims to obtain detailed knowledge of measurement properties of MG-ADL items and the MG-ADL score. MethodsCross-sectional data from a real-world prospective study (MRW) were combined with longitudinal data from the ADAPT trial. Outcome measures included were MG-ADL, Quantitative Myasthenia Gravis score (QMG), MG 15-item Quality of Life (MG-QOL15r) and EQ-5D-5L. Patients were categorized by their Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America (MGFA) clinical classification. The following measurement properties were assessed: distributional characteristics, inter-item correlation, convergent, known groups and construct validity and internal factor structure. ResultsCorrelations of items within MG-ADL dimensions were moderate, while MG-ADL correlations between comparable MG-QOL15r and QMG items were mixed. Known groups validity for the MG-ADL score was demonstrated for MGFA class. Mean MG-ADL item level scores by MGFA class demonstrated construct validity. PCA, including all four outcome measures, resulted in a nine factor solution. DiscussionPsychometric properties of individual MG-ADL items were moderate to good. This study showed that the MG-ADL adequately captures the multidimensional heterogeneous nature of MG. This is, however, accompanied by mixed psychometric performance of the MG-ADL score, which may complicate health economic modelling.Registration: MyRealWorld-MG was registered on November 25, 2019, with registration numberNCT04176211. The ADAPT randomized clinical trial is registered atClinicalTrials.gov(NCT03669588).

Stability of estimation item parameter in IRT dichotomy considering the number of participants

This research is related to item response theory (IRT) which is needed to measure the goodness of a test set, while item parameter estimation is needed to determine the technical properties of a test item. Stability of item parameter estimation is conducted to determine the minimum sample that can be used to obtain good item parameter estimation results. The purpose of this study is to describe the effect of the number of test takers on the stability of item parameter estimation with the Bayes method (expected a posteriori, EAP) on dichotomous data. This research is an exploratory descriptive research with a bootstrap approach using the EAP method. The EAP method is performed by modifying the likelihood and function to include prior information about the participant's 9 score. Bootstrapping on the original data is done to take bootstrap samples. with ten different sample sizes of 100, 150, 250, 300, 500, 700, 1,000, 1,500, 2,000, 2,500 were then replicated ten times and grain parameter estimation was performed. Each sample data with ten replications was calculated Root Mean Squared Difference (RMSD) value. The results showed that the 2PL model was chosen as the best model. The RMSD value obtained proves that many test participants affect the stability of item parameter estimation on dichotomous data with the 2PL model. The minimum sample to ensure the stability of item parameter estimates with the 2PL model is 1,000 test participants.

Development of a Screening Tool for Assessing Sexual Difficulties Among Patients with Parkinson's Disease: The PD-SDS.

People with Parkinson's disease (PwPD) exhibit various sexual difficulties (SDs) that may be due to motor and/or nonmotor symptoms or the use of antiparkinsonian medication. SDs are often underreported by PwPD and underexplored by physicians. This study aimed to explore the SDs experienced by PwPD and create a scale for assessing them. A corpus of items was generated from semistructured interviews to represent the experience of PwPD as closely as possible. The number of items was reduced according to the psychometric properties, and the scale's structure was subsequently examined. The final phase consisted of measuring the scale's validity and reliability. After assessment of the original corpus of 59 items by PwPD and clinicians, a 25-item version was obtained. The analysis of item properties led to the removal of fifteen items. An exploratory factor analysis of the first 10-item version with a first PwPD sample identified four components of the SDs among PwPD: "low sexual esteem," "sexual displeasure," "impact on sexual position" and "hypersexuality." With a second PwPD sample, a confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated a satisfactory fit between the model with four components and the data. The 10-item scale had good internal consistency and good temporal reliability. The Parkinson's Disease Sexual Difficulties Scale (PD-SDS) is a valid screening tool that facilitates the investigation of and communication about PD-related SDs. It is intended to improve the identification of vulnerable PwPD and to target the domain of sexual experience impacted by PD to better support PwPD.

Measurement invariance of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) across race/ethnicity and sex in the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) study.

There are numerous studies examining differences in the experience of disorders and symptoms of psychopathology in adolescents across racial or ethnic groups and sex. Though there is substantial research exploring potential factors that may influence these differences, few studies have considered the potential contribution of measurement properties to these differences. Therefore, this study examined whether there are differences across racial or ethnic groups and sex in the measurement of psychopathology, assessed in mother-reported behavior of 9-11 year old youth from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study sample using updated Child Behavior Checklist scales (CBCL; Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001). Tests of measurement invariance of the CBCL utilized the higher order factor structure identified by Michelini et al. (2019) using this same Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development cohort. The dimensions include internalizing, somatoform, detachment, externalizing, and neurodevelopmental problems. The configural model had a good-to-excellent fit on all subscales of the CBCL across racial or ethnic groups and sex. The metric and scalar models fit just as well as the configural models, indicating that the scales are measuring the same constructs across racial or ethnic groups and sex and are not influenced by measurement properties of items on the CBCL, although some high-severity response options were not endorsed for youth in all racial or ethnic groups. These findings support the use of the CBCL in research examining psychopathology in racially or ethnically diverse samples of youth. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

A nonparametric Bayesian item response modelling approach for clustering items and individuals simultaneously

Item response theory (IRT) is a popular modelling paradigm for measuring subject latent traits and item properties according to discrete responses in tests or questionnaires. There are very limited discussions on heterogeneity pattern detection for both items and individuals. In this paper, we introduce a nonparametric Bayesian approach for clustering items and individuals simultaneously under the Rasch model. Specifically, our proposed method is based on the mixture of finite mixtures (MFM) model, which obtains the number of clusters and the clustering configurations for both items and individuals simultaneously. The performance of parameter estimation and parameter clustering under the MFM Rasch model is evaluated by simulation studies, and two real examples are applied to further illustrate the MFM Rasch modelling.

Does Timed Testing Affect the Interpretation of Efficiency Scores?—A GLMM Analysis of Reading Components

AbstractThe efficiency of cognitive component skills is typically assessed with speeded performance tests. Interpreting only effective ability or effective speed as efficiency may be challenging because of the within‐person dependency between both variables (speed‐ability tradeoff, SAT). The present study measures efficiency as effective ability conditional on speed by controlling speed experimentally. Item‐level time limits control the stimulus presentation time and the time window for responding (timed condition). The overall goal was to examine the construct validity of effective ability scores obtained from untimed and timed condition by comparing the effects of theory‐based item properties on item difficulty. If such effects exist, the scores reflect how well the test‐takers were able to cope with the theory‐based requirements. A German subsample from PISA 2012 completed two reading component skills tasks (i.e., word recognition and semantic integration) with and without item‐level time limits. Overall, the included linguistic item properties showed stronger effects on item difficulty in the timed than the untimed condition. In the semantic integration task, item properties explained the time required in the untimed condition. The results suggest that effective ability scores in the timed condition better reflect how well test‐takers were able to cope with the theoretically relevant task demands.