This article proposes a multilevel model for the assessment of school effectiveness where the intake achievement is a predictor and the response variable is the achievement in the subsequent periods. The achievement is a latent variable that can be estimated on the basis of an item response theory model and hence subject to measurement error. Ignoring covariate measurement error leads to biased parameter estimates. To address this problem, a likelihood-based measurement error adjustment for multilevel models is proposed. In particular, the method deals with a covariate measured with error that has a random coefficient. An application to educational data from the Italian region of Lombardy illustrates the method.Manuscript received January 21, 2009 Revision received November 24, 2009 Accepted January 17, 2010

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The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations supports the production of edible insects as a promising and sustainable source of nutrients to meet the increasing demand for animal-derived products by the growing world population. Even if insects are part of the diet of more than two billion people worldwide, the practice of eating insects (entomophagy) raises challenging questions for Western countries where this is not a habit. The research applied the Rasch models and showed that, in the case of hunger or need, 70.8% of the sample declared that they would be willing to eat insects. The willingness to habitually consume and pay for insect food is very low, but the percentages are higher than people who had actually had insect tasting experiences. This demonstrates that a communication process is necessary that aims to overcome psychological/cultural barriers. Only in this way will it be possible to increase the propensity to consume insects.

This paper focuses on the evaluation of a job training programme composed of several different courses. The aim is to evaluate the impact of the programme for the participants with respect to non-participants, paying attention to possible differences in the effectiveness between the courses. The analysis is based on discrete data with a hierarchical structure. Multilevel modelling is the natural choice in this setting, but the results may be severely affected by selection bias. We propose a two-step procedure, which suits both the hierarchical structure and the observational nature of data. The method selects the appropriate control group, using standard results of the propensity score methodology. A suitable multilevel model is formulated, and the dependence of the results on the amount of non-random sample selection is analysed within a likelihood-based framework. As a result, rankings for comparative performances are obtained, adjusted for the amount of plausible selection bias. The procedure is illustrated with reference to a data set about a job training programme organized in Italy in the late 1990s.

The sensitivity has become a mass phenomenon, still in expansion. The European Commission, during last decade, carried out several surveys on food quality and animal welfare. This research, using data from a survey conducted on 320, respondents and applying the Rasch model on 14 selected questions (items), wants to develop a measure that appears representative of a latent variable defined as 'Sensitivity towards Animal Welfare'. The ability to measure the individual level of this 'Sensitivity' therefore represents an interesting and important result, especially if there are correlations between this variable and other variables characterizing the opinions and habits of individuals, both in general and in relation to consumer decisions.Key words: animal welfare, Rasch Model, Rasch-Andrich Thresolds, consumer behavior, consumption, sensitivity. * University of Udine, Department of Economic and Statistic Science, Via F. Tomadini, 33100 Udine, Italy, 0432-249312. E-mail: enrico.gori@uniud.it. * * University of Udine, Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental, and Animal Sciences, Via delle Scienze, 206, 33100 Udine, Italy, 0432-558316. * * * University of Udine, Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental, and Animal Sciences, 206, 33100 Udine, Italy, 0432-558305. * * * * University of Perugia, Department of Veterinary Medicine, Via S. Costanzo, 4, 06126 Perugia, Italy, 075-5857929. * * * * * University of Perugia, Department of Veterinary Medicine, Via S. Costanzo, 4, 06126 Perugia, Italy, 075-5857935. * * * * * * University of Perugia, Department of Veterinary Medicine, Via S. Costanzo, 4, 06126 Perugia, Italy, 075-5857934. * * * * * * * University of Udine, Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental, and Animal Sciences, Via delle Scienze, 206, 33100 Udine, Italy, 0432-558081.Copyright © FrancoAngeli N.B: Copia ad uso personale. È vietata la riproduzione (totale o parziale) dell'opera con qualsiasi mezzo effettuata e la sua messa a disposizione di terzi, sia in forma gratuita sia a pagamento.F r a n c o A n g e l iDOI: 10.3280/RISS2017-001008 108Riassunto La valutazione della sensibilità del consumatore al benessere animale: un'applicazione del modello di Rasch La sensibilità nei confronti degli animali è diventata un fenomeno di massa, in continua espansione. La Commissione europea, nel corso dell'ultimo decennio, ha svolto diverse indagini sulla qualità degli alimenti e sul benessere degli animali. Questa ricerca, utilizzando i dati di un sondaggio condotto su 320 soggetti e applicando il modello di Rasch su 14 domande selezionate, vuole sviluppare una misura che sia rappresentativa di una variabile latente definita come "Sensibilità verso il benessere degli animali". La possibilità di misurare a livello individuale questa "sensibilità" rappresenta quindi un risultato interessante e importante, soprattutto se ci sono correlazioni tra questa variabile e altre variabili che caratterizzano le opinioni e le abitudini degli individui, sia in generale che in relazione alle decisioni dei consuma...