Parameter estimation for Rasch type items that have never been used

Abstract

This study proposes a new conjoint model with orthogonal array using the notation of the structural equation modeling. It is shown that commonly available computer programs such as LISREL (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1993) and LISCOMP (Muthen, 1984) can be used to estimate the worth values of conjoint measure and item response curves of the Rasch type and graded response type. One remarkable feature of this method is that the response curves of items that have never been used, can be constructed. The constructed distribution functions were compared with the empirical distribution functions of cross validation data. The proposed method seemed to work well, because these functions were very similar to each other.