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Taylor & Francis (Routledge), Multivariate Behavioral Research, 5(47), p. 743-770

DOI: 10.1080/00273171.2012.715563

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A Model-Free Diagnostic for Single-Peakedness of Item Responses Using Ordered Conditional Means

Journal article published in 2012 by Marike Polak ORCID, Mark de Rooij, Willem J. Heiser
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Abstract

In this article we propose a model-free diagnostic for single-peakedness (unimodality) of item responses. Presuming a unidimensional unfolding scale and a given item ordering, we approximate item response functions of all items based on ordered conditional means (OCM). The proposed OCM methodology is based on Thurstone & Chave's (1929) criterion of irrelevance, which is a graphical, exploratory method for evaluating the “relevance” of dichotomous attitude items. We generalized this criterion to graded response items and quantified the relevance by fitting a unimodal smoother. The resulting goodness-of-fit was used to determine item fit and aggregated scale fit. Based on a simulation procedure, cutoff values were proposed for the measures of item fit. These cutoff values showed high power rates and acceptable Type I error rates. We present 2 applications of the OCM method. First, we apply the OCM method to personality data from the Developmental Profile; second, we analyze attitude data collected by Roberts and Laughlin (1996) concerning opinions of capital punishment.