Structural equation mixture models (SEMMs), when applied as a semiparametric model (SPM), can adequately recover potentially nonlinear latent relationships without their specification. This SPM is useful for exploratory analysis when the form of the latent regression is unknown. The purpose of this article is to help users familiar with structural…

Test equating under the NEAT design is, at best, a necessary evil. At bottom, the procedure aims to reach a conclusion on what a tested person would have done, if he or she were administered a set of items that were in fact never administered. It is not possible to infer such a conclusion from the data, because one simply has not made the required…

In organizational studies involving multiple levels, the association between a covariate and an outcome often differs at different levels of aggregation, giving rise to widespread interest in "contextual effects models." Such models partition the regression into within- and between-cluster components. The conventional approach uses each…

A theoretical advantage of item response theory (IRT) models is that trait estimates based on these models provide more test information than any other type of test score. It is still unclear, however, whether using IRT trait estimates improves external validity results in comparison with the results that can be obtained by using simple raw…