The purpose of the current investigation was to describe how the artificial neural networks (ANNs) can be used to interpret student performance on cognitive diagnostic assessments (CDAs) and evaluate the performances of ANNs using simulation results. CDAs are designed to measure student performance on problem-solving tasks and provide useful…

This study combined the kernel smoothing procedure and a nonparametric differential item functioning statistic--Cochran's Z--to statistically test the difference between the kernel-smoothed item response functions for reference and focal groups. Simulation studies were conducted to investigate the Type I error and power of the proposed…