This study aims at revising the Chinese-version Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale (Ho, Chik, & Thorson, 2008) using Rasch analysis, and to compare differences between two kinds of data collection¡Xweb-based questionnaire and paper-and-pencil questionnaire. Participants were 634 (sample 1) and 587 (sample 2) undergraduate students respectively for item revision and validation. Sample 2 were grouped into 4 groups to test differences between the two kinds of data collection. Rasch Rating Scale Model analysis was used to assess model-data fit, and MANCOVA was employed to compare the differences between the web-based and paper-and-pencil questionnaires. The results indicated that three dimensions of the revised 18-item scale¡Xhumor production, attitudes towards humor, and coping humor¡Xshowed good model-data fit. All items had no statistically significant differential item functioning in genders (boys and girls) and in ways of testing (the web-based and the paper-and-pencil). Reliabilities for humor production, attitudes towards humor, and coping humor were .89, .81, and .81 respectively. The revised scale was further examined through construct-related validity through general self-efficacy and emotional adaptive ability. Furthermore, only the dimension of attitudes towards humor had a statistically significant difference in ways of testing. Suggestions for future research on developing instrument of sense of humor were proposed.

This study concerned the development of measures for youth civic development in Malaysia with four major goals in mind, namely conceptual, measurement, baseline/pragmatic, and predictive goals. It was a preliminary study of its kind in Malaysia as Malaysia did not participate in any international or regional study such as the IEA Civic Study. The central intention of the study was to establish a conceptually valid assessment framework and psychometrically sound instruments for the measurement of youth civic development in Malaysia. This would, in turn, provide some baseline information upon which future research on youth civic development in Malaysia could build. Civics as a subject was removed from the Malaysian school curriculum in the early 1980s and Civic and Citizenship Education as a specific subject, with an explicit structure and curriculum framework, was reintroduced only in 2005. It was not feasible at the time when this study was conducted to conduct a specific assessment on the outcomes for school-aged students as explicated and expected in the curriculum framework. Therefore, the post-school-aged group of young undergraduates in public universities within the age range of 17-28 was selected as the target population. Firstly, a conceptualisation of youth civic development was synthesized by identifying current views on citizenship, as set out in the international literature and, specifically, in Malaysia in two major documents – the Rukenagara and Vision2020. Civic development consists of three variables of Civic Knowledge (CK) (knowledge about the legal status and associated rights and responsibilities of citizens); Civic Disposition (CD) (views on identity and attitudes as a citizen); and Civic Engagement (CE) (participation as a citizen). The relationship between civic development variables was explicated through a Neo-Vygotskian cultural-historical theory of human development. In addition, Bronfenbrenner’s Socio-Ecological Theory of human development was adopted for the selection of contextual and individual factors (the independent variables) for the conceptual model. To help ensure cross-cultural validity for use within the Malaysian socio-cultural context, the three dependent variables of CK, CD and CE, and the independent variables were appraised for their suitability for use within the Malaysian socio-cultural context before they were operationalized into observable indicators. Secondly, the Rasch measurement paradigm, framework and model were adopted as the foundation for instrument development and validation. The procedures for instrument development followed Wilson’s model of four building blocks of instrument development (Wilson, 2005). Three instruments were developed for this study, namely The Malaysian Civic Knowledge Inventory (MCKI), The Malaysian Civic Disposition Inventory (MCDI), and the Malaysian Civic Engagement Inventory (MCEI). Items from existing instruments in international literature were adopted or adapted for the three instruments, especially the MCEI, if there was construct equivalence in Rukunegara and Vision 2020. This was to ensure a cumulative tradition in research on youth civic development. Most of the items in the MCKI and the MCDI however were developed specifically for this study to capture the specificity of the civic culture of Malaysia. The target population for the study was undergraduate students enrolled in Malaysian public universities. Students at one public university were chosen as the accessible population. Data were collected in February 2006 (pilot study) and from July to August 2006 (main study). The sample for this study (N=1391) was drawn through multistage cluster sampling by study concentration, level of study, and clusters based on lecture/tutorial group. The sample also, by default, included major inherent characteristics of the target population, particularly gender (Male and Female) and ethnicity (Malay, Chinese, Indian and other ethnic groups). Rasch analyses confirmed the three-dimensional structure of youth civic development. Three measurement scales with acceptable psychometric properties were established to provide measures for the three dependent variables of CK, CD and CE. The hypotheses about civic development (in terms of CK, CD and CE) as a ‘tool and result’ activity were tested through path analyses of mediational relationships based on Baron and Kenny’s criteria (1986) using the Rasch-derived linearized scores from the main study. Analyses provided statistical support for a bidirectional association between each pair of CK, CD and CE, despite the low inter-correlations between them. This study revealed that, on average, youth in this study demonstrated a moderately high level of CK (Mean =1.11, SD = 0.77), a positive CD (Mean = 1.25; SD = 0.63) but a moderately low CE (Mean = -0.44; SD = 0.92). The Malay sub-sample scored, on average, higher on all three dimensions of civic development. The results of hierarchical multiple regressions however showed the effect of ethnicity (Malay or Non-Malay) was statistically non-significant when other contextual (home, curricular and co-curricular) variables were entered into the regression equation. This indicates it is not ethnicity that predicts levels of civic development, but rather it is the differences in other socio-political entitlements and status associated with ethnic status. Three selected collective social-contextual factors of home, curriculum and co-curriculum explained only a fairly modest but statistically significant amount of variance (10 to 20%) in the dependent variables. Finally, the findings were discussed in relation to the theoretical perspectives undergirding this study. Pragmatic implications for policy planning as well as other relevant stakeholders involved in youth civic development are also discussed.

This study examines the validity of the measures obtained from a performance assessment of students' developing context in a numeracy context. The study was based on three premises: that teachers could make valid and reliable judgments about their students in regular classroom situations; that numeracy competence was developmental and involved higher order thinking; and that using different performance tasks could provide information about changes in students' performances over time. (For complete abstract open document)

Thesis--Copenhagen. / Summary in Danish. Bibliography: p. 210-219.

Thesis--Copenhagen. / Summary in Danish. Bibliography: p. 210-219.

In this paper we consider conditional maximum likelihood (cml) estimates for item parameters in the Rasch model under random subject parameters. We give a simple approximation for the asymptotic covariance matrix of the cml-estimates. The approximation is stated as a limit theorem when the number of item parameters goes to infinity. The results contain precise mathematical information on the order of approximation. The results enable the analysis of the covariance structure of cml-estimates when the number of items is large. Let us give a rough picture. The covariance matrix has a dominating main diagonal containing the asymptotic variances of the estimators. These variances are almost equal to the efficient variances under ml-estimation when the distribution of the subject parameter is known. Apart from very small numbers n of item parameters the variances are almost not affected by the number n. The covariances are more or less negligible when the number of item parameters is large. Although this picture intuitively is not surprising it has to be established in precise mathematical terms. This has been done in the present paper. The paper is based on previous results [5] of the author concerning conditional distributions of non-identical replications of Bernoulli trials. The mathematical background are Edgeworth expansions for the central limit theorem. These previous results are the basis of approximations for the Fisher information matrices of cmlestimates. The main results of the present paper are concerned with the approximation of the covariance matrices. Numerical illustrations of the results and numerical experiments based on the results are presented in Strasser, [6].

The aim of the monograph is to contribute towards bridging the gap between methodological developments that have evolved in the social sciences, in particular in psychometric research, and methods of statistical modelling in a more general framework. The first part surveys certain special psychometric models (often referred to as Rasch family of models) that share common properties: separation of parameters describing qualities of the subject under investigation and parameters related to properties of the situation under which the response of a subject is observed. Using conditional maximum likelihood estimation, both types of parameters may be estimated independently from each other. In particular, the Rasch model, the rating scale model, the partial credit model, hybrid types, and linear extensions thereof are treated. The second part reviews basic ideas of generalized linear models (GLMs) as an an excellent framework for unifying different approaches and providing a natural, technical background for model formulation, estimation and testing. This is followed by a short introduction to the software package GLIM chosen to illustrate the formulation of psychometric models in the GLM framework. The third part is the main part of this monograph and shows the application of generalized linear models to psychometric approaches. It gives a unified treatment of Rasch family models in the context of log-linear models and contains some new material on log-linear longitudinal modelling. The last part of the monograph is devoted to show the usefulness of the latent variable approach in a variety of applications, such as panel, cross-over, and therapy evaluation studies, where standard statistical analysis does not necessarily lead to satisfactory results. (author´s abstract) / Series: Research Report Series / Department of Statistics and Mathematics

The Rasch sampler is an efficient algorithm to sample binary matrices with given marginal sums. It is a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm. The program can handle matrices of up to 1024 rows and 64 columns. A special option allows to sample square matrices with given marginals and fixed main diagonal, a problem prominent in social network analysis. In all cases the stationary distribution is uniform. The user has control on the serial dependency. (authors' abstract)

Tarptautinis švietimo tyrimas PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) tiria penkiolikmečių mokinių skaitymo gebėjimus, matematinį ir gamtamokslį raštingumą. Taip pat tyrimo metu renka informaciją apie mokinį, jo pomegius, informacinius ir komunikacinių technologijų išmanymą ir naudojimą, namų aplinką, mokyklą kurioje jis mokosi ir pan. Informacija surinkta tyrimo metu yra vertinga švietimo tyrėjams, sprendimų priėmėjams, švietimiečiams ir pan. Šio darbo tikslas – taikant hierarchinė regresiją rasti mokinių matematinio raštingumo rezultatų prikausomybę nuo mokymo(si) aplinkos veiksnių. Kadangi mokiniai yra pirmojo lygmens objektai, o mokyklos – antrojo lygmens, todėl analizuojant duomenis reikia atsižvelgti į duomenų hierarchiškumą. Besąlyginio hierarchinio modelio analizė atskleidė, kad 32 % Lietuvos penkiolikmečių matematinio raštingumo rezultatų skirtumų lemia mokyklos. Taikant hierarchinį tiesinį modeliavimą, sudarytas geriausias hierarchinis tiesinis modelis su atitinkamais kintamaisiais bei užrašyta lygtis, kuri gali būti naudojama Lietuvos penkiolikmečių matematinio raštingumo rezultatų prognozavimui. / International education survey PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) examine 15-yers-old reading, mathematical and science literacy. A lot of information about student‘s, theirs hobbies, knowledge and use of information and comunication technology, home and school environment and etc. is collected during PISA survey. The collected information is valuable source of information for researchers, policy makers, educators and ect. The main purpose of this work, “Analysis of Lithuanian Students Literacy Using International Survey PISA 2009 Data“, is using hierarchical regression to find the students' mathematical literacy dependency of training and learning environment factors. The students are first-level objects and schools - at the second level, so data analysis should take into account the data hierarchy. Unconditional hierarchical model analysis revealed that 32 % of Lithuanian 15-years-old students’ mathematical literacy outcomes determined by the school. Best hierarchical linear model with relevant variables was done using hierarchical linear modelling. Also a prognostic equation of Lithuaninan 15-years-old students matematic literacy was created.

Information systems (IS) research frequently uses survey data to measure the interplay between technological systems and human beings. Researchers have developed sophisticated procedures to build and validate multi-item scales that measure latent constructs. The vast majority of IS studies uses classical test theory (CTT), but this approach suffers from three major theoretical shortcomings: (1) it assumes a linear relationship between the latent variable and observed scores, which rarely represents the empirical reality of behavioral constructs; (2) the true score can either not be estimated directly or only by making assumptions that are difficult to be met; and (3) parameters such as reliability, discrimination, location, or factor loadings depend on the sample being used. To address these issues, we present item response theory (IRT) as a collection of viable alternatives for measuring continuous latent variables by means of categorical indicators (i.e., measurement variables). IRT offers several advantages: (1) it assumes nonlinear relationships; (2) it allows more appropriate estimation of the true score; (3) it can estimate item parameters independently of the sample being used; (4) it allows the researcher to select items that are in accordance with a desired model; and (5) it applies and generalizes concepts such as reliability and internal consistency, and thus allows researchers to derive more information about the measurement process. We use a CTT approach as well as Rasch models (a special class of IRT models) to demonstrate how a scale for measuring hedonic aspects of websites is developed under both approaches. The results illustrate how IRT can be successfully applied in IS research and provide better scale results than CTT. We conclude by explaining the most appropriate circumstances for applying IRT, as well as the limitations of IRT.