A latent variable model with change-points and its application to time pressure effects in educational assessment

Gabriel Wallin, Yunxiao Chen, Yi-Hsuan Lee and Xiaoou Li

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Educational assessments are valuable tools for measuring student knowledge and skills, but their validity can be compromised when test takers exhibit changes in response behavior due to factors such as time pressure. To address this issue, we introduce a novel latent factor model with change-points for item response data, designed to detect and account for individual-level shifts in response patterns during testing. This model extends traditional item response theory (IRT) by incorporating person-specific change-points, which enables simultaneous estimation of item parameters, person latent traits, and the location of behavioral changes. We evaluate the proposed model through extensive simulation studies, which demonstrate its ability to accurately recover item parameters, change-point locations, and individual ability estimates under various conditions. Our findings show that accounting for change-points significantly reduces bias in ability estimates, particularly for respondents affected by time pressure. Application of the model to two real-world educational testing datasets reveals distinct patterns of change-point occurrence between high-stakes and lower-stakes tests, providing insights into how test-taking behavior evolves during the tests. This approach offers a more nuanced understanding of test-taking dynamics, with important implications for test design, scoring, and interpretation.

Keywords: change-points; Latent Factor Model; Item Response Theory; educational assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2025-09-30
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Published in Annals of Applied Statistics, 30, September, 2025, 19(3), pp. 2490 - 2516. ISSN: 1932-6157

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