The authors of this article comment on "Construct Maps as a Foundation for Standard Setting," by Adam E. Wyse (this issue) in which Wyse presents construct maps, a visual display of a variety of sources of evidence that support standard-setting decisions, and shows how this approach could be used with a variety of existing…

When using IRT models in Educational Achievement Testing, the model is as a rule too simple to catch all the relevant dimensions in the test. It is argued that a simple model may nevertheless be useful but that it can be complemented with additional analyses. Such an analysis, called profile analysis, is proposed and applied to the reading data of…

In this paper, we propose a cluster-MDS model for two-way one-mode continuous rating dissimilarity data. The model aims at partitioning the objects into classes and simultaneously representing the cluster centers in a low-dimensional space. Under the normal distribution assumption, a latent class model is developed in terms of the set of…

Classroom context and climate are inherently classroom-level (L2) constructs, but applied researchers sometimes--inappropriately--represent them by student-level (L1) responses in single-level models rather than more appropriate multilevel models. Here we focus on important conceptual issues (distinctions between climate and contextual variables;…

Akaike's information criterion is suggested as a tool for evaluating fit and dimensionality in metric multidimensional scaling that uses least squares methods of estimation. This criterion combines the least squares loss function with the number of estimated parameters. Numerical examples are presented. The results from analyses of both simulation…

In 2001, Elliot and McGregor proposed a 2 x 2 (mastery-performance x approach- avoidance) achievement goal frameworks and developed a questionnaire to measure four goals (mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals). This study examines the dual meanings of items in 2 x 2 achievement goal…

The authors examined 38 school counselor supervisors' perceptions of the Discrimination Model (DM; Bernard, 1979, 1997) of supervision, replicating and extending Ellis and Dell's (1986) investigation of the DM with mental health counselor supervisors. Participants judged the dissimilarity of each unique combination of roles and foci of the DM. The…

Motivated by Gibbons et al.'s (Appl. Psychol. Meas. 31:4-19, "2007") full-information maximum marginal likelihood item bifactor analysis for polytomous data, and Rijmen, Vansteelandt, and De Boeck's (Psychometrika 73:167-182, "2008") work on constructing computationally efficient estimation algorithms for latent variable…

Judging from the recent surge in research on outcomes assessment, many study abroad offices rely on quantitative surveys and measures to collect student outcomes data. This paper presents a multidimensional, qualitative approach to data collection. This approach makes qualitative data easy to collect and encourages students to reflect and…

This study linked nonlinear profile analysis (NPA) of dichotomous responses with an existing family of item response theory models and generalized latent variable models (GLVM). The NPA method offers several benefits over previous internal profile analysis methods: (a) NPA is estimated with maximum likelihood in a GLVM framework rather than…

The Interpersonal Adjective Scales (IAS) is a well-supported instrument that is designed to map interpersonal traits onto the interpersonal circumplex. However, three versions of the IAS exist and these vary with respect to the degree to which they included item definitions (i.e., glossary added at the end, definitions attached to each item, and…

Some three-way factor analysis and multidimensional scaling models incorporate the principle of parallel proportional profiles of R. B. Cattell. Proof is presented for a unique axis orientation for a more general parallel profiles model that incorporates interacting dimensions. Special cases of PARAFAC2 and CANDECOMP models are discussed. (SLD)

For the exploratory analysis of a matrix of proximities or (dis)similarities between objects, one often uses cluster analysis (CA) or multidimensional scaling (MDS). Solutions resulting from such analyses are sometimes interpreted using external information on the objects. Usually the procedures of CA, MDS and using external information are…

A model for preferential and triadic choice is derived in terms of weighted sums of central F distribution functions. It is a probabilistic generalization of Coombs' (1964) unfolding model from which special cases can be derived easily. This model for binary choice can be easily related to preference ratio judgments. (SLD)

A multidimensional scaling procedure is introduced that attempts to derive a spatial representation of stimuli unconfounded by the effect of subjects' degrees of familiarity with these stimuli. A Monte Carlo study investigating the extent to which the procedure recovers known parameters shows that the procedure succeeds in adjusting for…