Detecting Measurement Disturbance: Graphical Illustrations of Item Characteristic Curves

Yessimov, Bolathan; Hussein, Rasha Abed; Mohammed, Aisha; Hassan, Aalaa Yaseen; Hashim, Ahmed; Najeeb, Salma Saad; Mohammed Ali, Yusra; Abdullah, Ahmed Salim; Afif, Nashaat Sultan

doi:10.22034/ijlt.2023.391731.1247

Detecting Measurement Disturbance: Graphical Illustrations of Item Characteristic Curves

Document Type : Special Issue

Authors

Bolathan Yessimov ¹

Rasha Abed Hussein ²

Aisha Mohammed ³

Aalaa Yaseen Hassan ⁴

Ahmed Hashim ⁵

Salma Saad Najeeb ⁶

Yusra Mohammed Ali ⁷

Ahmed Salim Abdullah ⁸

Nashaat Sultan Afif ⁹

¹ Institute of Natural Sciences and Geography, Abai Kazakh National Pedagogical University, Almaty, Kazakhstan.

² Al-Manara College For Medical Sciences, Misan, Iraq

³ College of Pharmacy / Al-Farahidi University, Baghdad , Iraq

⁴ Al-Nisour University College, Baghdad, Iraq

⁵ Department of English Language, Mazaya University College, Iraq

⁶ Al-Esraa University College, Baghdad, Iraq

⁷ Department of Medical Laboratory Techniques, Al-Zahrawi University College, Karbala, Iraq

⁸ English Department, Al-Noor University College, Nineveh, Iraq

⁹ People’s Friendship University of Russia, Moscow, Russia

10.22034/ijlt.2023.391731.1247

Abstract

Measurement disturbances refer to any conditions that affect the measurement of some psychological latent variables, which result in an inaccurate interpretation of item or person estimates derived from a measurement model. Measurement disturbances are mainly attributed to the characteristics of the person, the properties of the items, and the interaction between the characteristics of the person and the features of the items. Although numerous researchers have detected measurement disturbances in different contexts, too little attention has been devoted to exploring measurement disturbances within the context of language testing and assessment, especially using graphical displays. This study aimed to show the utility of graphical displays, which surpass numeric values of infit and outfit statistics given by the Rasch model, to explore measurement disturbances in a listening comprehension test. Results of the study showed two types of outcomes for examining graphical displays and their corresponding numeric fit values: congruent and incongruent associations. It turned out that graphical displays can provide diagnostic information about the performance of test items which might not be captured through numeric values.

Keywords

Graphical displays

item characteristic curves

measurement disturbances

model-data fit