It is common practice for assessment programs to organize qualifying sessions during which the raters (often known as "markers" or "judges") demonstrate their consistency before operational rating commences. Because of the high-stakes nature of many rating activities, the research community tends to continuously explore new…

The article compares three different methods to estimate effects of task characteristics and to use these estimates for model-based proficiency scaling: prediction of item difficulties from the Rasch model, the linear logistic test model (LLTM), and an LLTM including random item effects (LLTM+e). The methods are applied to empirical data from a…