What is Item Response Theory?

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Item Response Theory or IRT is a theory in psychometrics that is based on the assumption that individual answers or responses to questions have actual mathematical relationships. Through IRT, the abilities or intelligence of people are said to be measurable through various mathematical models and techniques. In most cases, the use of Item Response Theory is mostly in the assessments involved in high-level examinations and testing like the GRE or the Graduate Record Examination. This type of exam is commonly required for those who want to get post-baccalaureate or graduate degrees in various schools across the US. The GRE involves questions that assess the applicant’s verbal, critical, analytical, and quantitative intelligence and all responses are analyzed through the Item Response Theory in order to properly scale items in terms of actual intelligence, strength, or attitude.

In the field of education, assessments for students are typically based on standard approaches that involve scoring their abilities in various fields including reading, comprehension, and arithmetic among others. For psychometric experts, this so-called intelligence is considered unobservable and therefore latent. With this description, Item Response Theory is also referred to as the Latent Trait Theory. Some people also refer to it as the Modern Mental Test Theory since it is applied in most modern statistical analysis and assessment of people’s abilities, attitude, intelligence, and other variables. In the field of psychometrics, the goal of analyzing or assessing variables is to determine how much of this unobservable or latent trait a specific person actually possesses. In its simplest explanation, IRT or Item Response Theory is a kind of analysis based on the assumption or the high probability that a person will be able to answer a question correctly based on his/her own latent ability. Those who answer questions incorrectly simply mean that this particular person does not have that kind of latent intelligence. In IRT, people with high intellect are assumed to answer questions correctly because of their latent trait.

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