Survey instruments and assessments are frequently used in many domains of social science. When the constructs that these assessments try to measure become multifaceted, multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) provides a unified framework and convenient statistical tool for item analysis, calibration, and scoring. However, the computational…

Among current state-of-art estimation methods for multilevel IRT models, the two-stage divide-and-conquer strategy has practical advantages, such as clearer definition of factors, convenience for secondary data analysis, convenience for model calibration and fit evaluation, and avoidance of improper solutions. However, various studies have shown…