Affiliation:
1. The University of Alabama
2. Universidad Autonoma de Madrid
3. University of Georgia
4. College Board
Abstract
AbstractMost existing diagnostic models are developed to detect whether students have mastered a set of skills of interest, but few have focused on identifying what scientific misconceptions students possess. This article developed a general dual‐purpose model for simultaneously estimating students' overall ability and the presence and absence of misconceptions. The expectation‐maximization algorithm was developed to estimate the model parameters. A simulation study was conducted to evaluate to what extent the parameters can be accurately recovered under varied conditions. A set of real data in science education was also analyzed to examine the viability of the proposed model in practice.
Funder
National Science Foundation
Subject
Psychology (miscellaneous),Applied Psychology,Developmental and Educational Psychology,Education