This volume gathers together a set of extensions of the Rasch model, one of the most prominent models for measurement in educational research and - cial science developed by Danish mathematician Georg Rasch. The idea for this volume emerged during a meeting of the Psychometric Society in M- terey, CA. At that meeting, friends and colleagues discussed news about the impending retirement of Dr. Jurgen ¿ Rost, an important innovator and m- tor in this ?eld. To recognize Jurgen¿s ¿ contributions, we decided to produce a collection of research on extending the Rasch model as well as embedding the Rasch model in more complex statistical models, an area that is receiving broad interest in many ?elds of social sciences at the current time. This collection contains 22 chapters by recognized international experts in the?eld.Thecontributionscovertopicsrangingfromgeneralmodelextensions to application in ?elds as diverse as cognition, personality, organizational and sports psychology, and health sciences and education. The Rasch model is designed for categorical data, often collected as ex- inees¿ responses to multiple tasks such as cognitive items from psychological tests or from educational assessments. The Rasch model¿s elegant mathema- cal form is suitable for extensions that allow for greater ?exibility in handling complex samples of examinees and collections of tasks from di?erent domains. In these extensions, the Rasch model is enhanced by additional structural - ements that account either for di?erences between diverse populations or for di?erences among observed variables.

Introduction: extending the Rasch model or abandoning the Rasch model, Matthias von Davier, Jürgen Rost, Claus H. Carstensen.- Measurement models as narrative structures, Robert Mislevy, Chun-Wei Huang.- Testing generalized RM's, Cees A.W. Glas.- The mixed-coefficients multinomal logit model--a generalized form of the Rasch model, Raymond J. Adams, Margaret L. Wu.- Loglinear multivariate mixture Rasch models, Henk Kelderman.- Mixture distribution and hybrid Rasch models, Matthias von Davier, Kentaro Yamamoto.- Application of the Saltus model to stage-like data: some appliations and current developments, Karen Draney, Mark Wilson.- Determination of diagnostic cutpoints using stochastically ordered mixed Rasch models, Svend Kreiner.- A HYBRID model for test speededness, Keith A. Boughton, Kentaro Yamamoto.- Multidimensional three-mode RM's, Claus H. Carstensen, Jürgen Rost.- (Almost) equivalence between conditional and mixture maximum likelihood estimates for some models of the Rasch type, Anton K. Formann.- Rasch models for longitudinal data, Thorsten Meiser.- The interaction model, Shelby J. Haberman.- Multilvel Rasch models, Akihito Kamata, Yuk Fai Cheong.- Mixed Rasch models for measurement in cognitive psychology, Susan E. Embretson.- Detecting response styles and faking in personality and organizational assessments by mixed Rasch models, Michael Eid, Michael J. Zickar.- Application of multivariate Rasch models in international large scale educational assessments, Raymond J. Adams, Margaret L. Wu, Claus H. Carstensen.- Studying development via item response models: a wide range of potential uses, Judith Glück, Christiane Spiel.- A comparison of the Rasch model and constrained item response theory models for pertinent psychological test data, Klaus D. Kubinger, Clemens Draxler.- Latent response Rasch models for strategy shifts in problem solving processes, Carl P. M. Rijkes,Henk Kelderman.- Validity and objectivity in health related scales:analysis by graphical loglinear Rasch models, Svend Kreiner, Karl Bang Christensen.- Applications of generalized Rasch models in the sport, exercise and the motor domains, Gershon Tenenbaum, Bernd Strauss, Dirk Büsch.