R. Janssen et P. De Boeck, Confirmatory analyses of componential test structure using multidimensional item response theory, MULTIV BE R, 34(2), 1999, pp. 245-268
The componential structure of synonym tasks is investigated using confirmat
ory multidimensional two-parameter IRT models. It was hypothesized that an
open synonym task is decomposable into generating synonym candidates and ev
aluating these candidate words with respect to their synonymy with the stim
ulus word. Two subtasks were constructed to identify these two components.
Different confirmatory models were estimated both with TESTMAP and with NOH
ARM. The componential hypothesis was supported, but it was found that the g
eneration subtask also involved some evaluation and that generation and eva
luation were highly correlated.