The general theme of this book is to encourage the use of relevant methodology in data mining which is or could be applied to the interplay of education, statistics and computer science to solve psychometric issues and challenges in the new generation of assessments. In addition to item response data, other data collected in the process of assessment and learning will be utilized to help solve psychometric challenges and facilitate learning and other educational applications. Process data include those collected or available for collection during the process of assessment and instructional phase such as responding sequence data, log files, the use of help features, the content of web searches, etc. Some book chapters present the general exploration of process data in large-scale assessment. Further, other chapters also address how to integrate psychometrics and learning analytics in assessment and survey, how to use data mining techniques for security and cheating detection, how to use more assessment results to facilitate student’s learning and guide teacher’s instructional efforts. The book includes both theoretical and methodological presentations that might guide the future in this area, as well as illustrations of efforts to implement big data analytics that might be instructive to those in the field of learning and psychometrics. The context of the effort is diverse, including K-12, higher education, financial planning, and survey utilization. It is hoped that readers can learn from different disciplines, especially those who are specialized in assessment, would be critical to expand the ideas of what we can do with data analytics for informing assessment practices.

This textbook describes the broadening methodology spectrum of psychological measurement in order to meet the statistical needs of a modern psychologist. The way statistics is used, and maybe even perceived, in psychology has drastically changed over the last few years; computationally as well as methodologically. R has taken the field of psychology by storm, to the point that it can now safely be considered the lingua franca for statistical data analysis in psychology. The goal of this book is to give the reader a starting point when analyzing data using a particular method, including advanced versions, and to hopefully motivate him or her to delve deeper into additional literature on the method. Beginning with one of the oldest psychometric model formulations, the true score model, Mair devotes the early chapters to exploring confirmatory factor analysis, modern test theory, and a sequence of multivariate exploratory method. Subsequent chapters present special techniques useful for modern psychological applications including correlation networks, sophisticated parametric clustering techniques, longitudinal measurements on a single participant, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. In addition to using real-life data sets to demonstrate each method, the book also reports each method in three parts-- first describing when and why to apply it, then how to compute the method in R, and finally how to present, visualize, and interpret the results. Requiring a basic knowledge of statistical methods and R software, but written in a casual tone, this text is ideal for graduate students in psychology. Relevant courses include methods of scaling, latent variable modeling, psychometrics for graduate students in Psychology, and multivariate methods in the social sciences.

Learning Analytics become the key for Personalised Learning and Teaching thanks to the storage, categorisation and smart retrieval of Big Data. Thousands of user data can be tracked online via Learning Management Systems, instant messaging channels, social networks and other ways of communication. Always with the explicit authorisation from the end user, being a student, a teacher, a manager or a persona in a different role, an instructional designer can design a way to produce a practical dashboard that helps him improve that very user’s performance, interaction, motivation or just grading. This book provides a thorough approach on how education, as such, from teaching to learning through management, is improved by a smart analysis of available data, making visible and useful behaviours, predictions and patterns that are hinder to the regular eye without the process of massive data.

Today psychometrics plays an increasingly important role in all our lives as testing and assessment occurs from preschool until retirement. This book introduces the reader to the subject in all its aspects, ranging from its early history, school examinations, how to construct your own test, controversies about IQ and recent developments in testing on the internet. In Part one of Modern Psychometrics, Rust and Golombok outline the history of the field and discuss central theoretical issues such as IQ, personality and integrity testing and the impact of computer technology and the internet. In Part two a practical step-by-step guide to the development of a psychometric test is provided. This will enable anyone wishing to develop their own test to plan, design, construct and validate it to a professional standard. This third edition has been extensively updated and expanded to take into account recent developments in the field, making it the ideal companion for those studying for the British Psychological Society’s Certificates of Competence in Testing. Modern Psychometrics combines an up to date scientific approach to the subject with a full consideration of the political and ethical issues involved in the large scale implementation of psychometrics testing in today’s highly networked society, particularly in terms of issues of diversity and internationalism. It will be useful to students and practictioners at all levels who are interested in psychometrics.

The book will be designed primarily for graduate students (or advanced undergraduates) who are learning psychometrics, as well as professionals in the field who need a reference for use in their practice. We would assume that users have some basic knowledge of using SPSS to read data and conduct basic analyses (e.g., descriptive statistics, frequency distributions). In addition, the reader should be familiar with basic statistical concepts such as descriptive statistics (e.g., mean, median, variance, standard deviation), percentiles and the rudiments of hypothesis testing. They should also have a passing familiarity with issues in psychometrics such as reliability, validity and test/survey scoring. We will not assume any more than basic familiarity with these issues, and will devote a portion of each chapter (as well as the entire first chapter) to reviewing many of these basic ideas for those not familiar with them. We envision the book as being useful either as a primary text for a course on applied measurement where SPSS is the main platform for instruction, or as a supplement to a more theoretical text. We also anticipate that readers working in government agencies responsible for testing and measurement issues at the local, state and national levels, and private testing, survey and market research companies, as well as faculty members needing a practical resource for psychometric practice will serve as a market for the book. In short, the readership would include graduate students, faculty members, data analysts and psychometricians responsible for analysis of survey response data, as well as educational and psychological assessments. The goal of the book is to provide readers with the tools necessary for assessing the psychometric qualities of educational and psychological measures as well as surveys and questionnaires. Each chapter will cover an issue pertinent to psychometric and measurement practice, with an emphasis on application. Topics will be briefly discussed from a theoretical/technical perspective in order to provide the reader with the background necessary to correctly use and interpret the statistical analyses that will be presented subsequently. Readers will then be presented with examples illustrating a particular concept (e.g., reliability). These examples will include a discussion of the particular analysis, along with the SPSS code necessary to conduct them. The resulting output will then be discussed in detail, focusing on the interpretation of the results. Finally, examples of how these results might be written up will also be included in the text. It is hoped that this mixture of theory with examples of actual practice will serve the reader both as a pedagogical tool and as a reference work. To our knowledge, no book outlining psychometric practice using commonly available software such as SPSS currently exists. Given that many practitioners in academia, government and private industry use SPSS for statistical analyses of testing data, we believe that our book will fill an important niche in the market. It will contain very practical information regarding how to conduct a wide variety of psychometric analyses, along with tips on interpretation of results and the appropriate format for reporting these results. We believe that it will prove useful to individuals in educational measurement, psychometrics, and survey and market research. Our text will add to the literature by providing users with a single reference containing the major ideas in applied psychometrics with instructions and examples for conducting the analyses in SPSS. In addition, we will provide original macros for estimating a variety of statistics and conducting analyses common in educational and psychological measurement.

Grounded in current knowledge and professional practice, this book provides up-to-date coverage of psychometric theory, methods, and interpretation of results. Essential topics include measurement and statistical concepts, scaling models, test design and development, reliability, validity, factor analysis, item response theory, and generalizability theory. Also addressed are norming and test equating, topics not typically covered in traditional psychometrics texts. Examples drawn from a dataset on intelligence testing are used throughout the book, elucidating the assumptions underlying particular methods and providing SPSS (or alternative) syntax for conducting analyses. The companion website presents datasets for all examples as well as PowerPoint slides of figures and key concepts. Pedagogical features include equation boxes with explanations of statistical notation, and end-of-chapter glossaries. The Appendix offers extensions of the topical chapters with example source code from SAS, SPSS, IRTPRO, BILOG-MG, PARSCALE, TESTFACT, and DIMTEST.

"Psychological statistics and psychometrics using Stata by Scott Baldwin is a complete and concise resource for students and researchers in the behavioral sciences. Professor Baldwin includes dozens of worked examples using real data to illustrate the theory and concepts. This book would be an excellent textbook for a graduate-level course in psychometrics. It is also an ideal reference for psychometricians who are new to Stata. Baldwin's primary goal in this book is to help readers become competent users of statistics. To that end, he first introduces basic statistical methods such as regression, t tests, and ANOVA. He focuses on explaining the models, how they can be used with different types of variables, and how to interpret the results. After building this foundation, Baldwin covers more advanced statistical techniques, including power-and-sample size calculations, multilevel modeling, and structural equation modeling. This book also discusses measurement concepts that are crucial in psychometrics. For instance, Baldwin explores how reliability and validity can be understood and evaluated using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Baldwin includes dozens of worked examples using real data to illustrate the theory and concepts. In addition to teaching statistical topics, this book helps readers become proficient Stata users. Baldwin teaches Stata basics ranging from navigating the interface to using features for data management, descriptive statistics, and graphics. He emphasizes the need for reproducibility in data analysis; therefore, he is careful to explain how version control and do-files can be used to ensure that results are reproducible. As each statistical concept is introduced, the corresponding commands for fitting and interpreting models are demonstrated. Beyond this, readers learn how to run simulations in Stata to help them better understand the models they are fitting and other statistical concepts. This book is an excellent textbook for graduate-level courses in psychometrics. It is also an ideal reference for psychometricians and other social scientists who are new to Stata"--Publisher's website.