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Markov Decision Process Measurement Model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Michelle M. LaMar Open the ORCID record for Michelle M. LaMar [Opens in a new window]
Michelle M. LaMar*
Affiliation:
Educational Testing Service
*
Correspondence should be made to Michelle M. LaMar, Educational Testing Service, Princeton, NJ, USA. Email: mlamar@ets.org
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Abstract

Within-task actions can provide additional information on student competencies but are challenging to model. This paper explores the potential of using a cognitive model for decision making, the Markov decision process, to provide a mapping between within-task actions and latent traits of interest. Psychometric properties of the model are explored, and simulation studies report on parameter recovery within the context of a simple strategy game. The model is then applied to empirical data from an educational game. Estimates from the model are found to correlate more strongly with posttest results than a partial-credit IRT model based on outcome data alone.

Keywords

latent-trait modelcognitive modelperformance assessment
Type
Original Paper
Information
Psychometrika , Volume 83 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 67 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 The Psychometric Society

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Footnotes

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11336-017-9570-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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