Does adaptive testing violate local independence?

Item response theory posits "local independence," or conditional independen ce of item responses given item parameters and examinee proficiency paramet ers. The usual definition of local independence, however, addresses the con text of fixed tests, and initially appears to yield incorrect response-patt ern probabilities in the context of adaptive testing. The paradox is resolv ed by introducing additional notation to deal with the item selection mecha nism.