Confirmatory analyses of componential test structure using multidimensional item response theory

Abstract

The componential structure of synonym tasks is investigated using confirmatory multidimensional two-parameter IRT models. It was hypothesized that an open synonym task is decomposable into generating synonym candidates and evaluating these candidate words with respect to their synonymy with the stimulus word. Two subtasks were constructed to identify these two components. Different confirmatory models were estimated both with TESTMAP and with NOHARM. The componential hypothesis was supported, but it was found that the generation subtask also involved some evaluation and that generation and evaluation were highly correlated.