Item Response Theory

Abstract

Few would doubt that researchers at ETS have contributed more to the general topic of item response theory (IRT) than individuals from any other institution. In this chapter, we review most of those contributions, dividing them into sections by decades of publication. The history of IRT begins before the seminal volume by Lord and Novick (Statistical Theories of Mental Test Scores, Addison-Wesley, Reading, 1968) and ETS researchers were central contributors to those developments, beginning with early work by Fred Lord and Bert Green in the 1950s. The chapter traces a wide range of contributions through the decades, ending with recent work that produced models involving complex latent variable structures and multiple dimensions.