Item response theory has become an essential component in the toolkit of every researcher in the behavioral sciences. It provides a powerful means to study individual responses to a variety of stimuli, and the methodology has been extended and developed to cover many different models of interaction. This volume presents a wide-ranging handbook to item response theory - and its applications to educational and psychological testing. It will serve as both an introduction to the subject and also as a comprehensive reference volume for practitioners and researchers. It is organized into six major sections: the nominal categories model, models for response time or multiple attempts on items, models for multiple abilities or cognitive components, nonparametric models, models for nonmonotone items, and models with special assumptions. Each chapter in the book has been written by an expert of that particular topic, and the chapters have been carefully edited to ensure that a uniform style of notation and presentation is used throughout. As a result, all researchers whose work uses item response theory will find this an indispensable companion to their work and it will be the subject's reference volume for many years to come.

1. Item Response Theory: Brief History, Common Models, and Extensions.- 2. The Nominal Categories Model.- 3. A Response Model for Multiple-Choice Items.- 4. The Rating Scale Model.- 5. Graded Response Model.- 6. The Partial Credit Model.- 7. A Steps Model to Analyze Partial Credit.- 8. Sequential Models for Ordered Responses.- 9. A Generalized Partial Credit Model.- 10. A Logistic Model for Time-Limit Tests.- 11. Models for Speed and Time-Limit Tests.- 12. Multiple-Attempt, Single-Item Response Models.- 13. Unidimensional Linear Logistic Rasch Models.- 14. Response Models with Manifest Predictors.- 15. Normal-Ogive Multidimensional Model.- 16. A Linear Logistic Multidimensional Model for Dichotomous Item Response Data.- 17. Loglinear Multidimensional Item Response Model for Polytomously Scored Items.- 18. Multicomponent Response Models.- 19. Multidimensional Linear Logistic Models for Change.- 20. Nonparametric Models for Dichotomous Responses.- 21. Nonparametric Models for Polytomous Responses.- 22. A Functional Approach to Modeling Test Data.- 23. An Hyperbolic Cosine IRT Model for Unfolding Direct Responses of Persons to Items.- 24. PARELLA: An IRT Model for Parallelogram Analysis.- 25. Multiple Group IRT.- 26. Logistic Mixture Models.- 27. Models for Locally Dependent Responses: Conjunctive Item Response Theory.- 28. Mismatch Models for Test Formats that Permit Partial Information To Be Shown.- Author Index.