A Comparison of Equating Methods and Linking Designs for Developing an Item Pool under Item Response Theory

Abstract

The existence of an item pool can bring out the various merits of using item response theory (IRT). This study considered the case where the development of an item pool is in progress. We examined the robustness of four calibration methods in three linking designs using simulated data. The data were generated assuming that a small-sized item pool had already been developed and new items were to be added to that item pool. The results suggested that the item characteristic curve method generally performed well. The performance of the fixed common item parameter calibration method and the concurrent calibration method worsened in one of the linking designs where the number of common items was small. The results also suggested that performance was better when the sample size per form and the number of common items were large.