The standard methodology for many large-scale assessments in education involves regressing latent variables on numerous contextual variables to estimate proficiency distributions. To reduce the number of contextual variables used in the regression and improve estimation, we propose and evaluate principal component analysis on the covariance matrix…

An index identifying factors leading to unusual response patterns by students, the modified caution index, was computed for the reading comprehension and study skills items of Booklet 5 from the 1979 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading achievement survey given to the 9-, 13- and 17-year-old samples. The analyses focused on…

Techniques to identify the degree to which a response pattern is unusual and the pattern's relationship to examinee background are presented. Sato's caution index and modified caution index use clusters of items for comparisons of observed performance outcomes and do not require the use of item response theory. Correlation between the indices was…