“…That is, we do not assume any hierarchical or directional relationship among the attributes. However, as noted by Rupp et al (2010), the unstructured specification is unlikely to reflect observed data in educational contexts where hierarchical structures arise naturally (e.g., skills build on prerequisite skills)-for instance, when assessments are developed based on learning progressions, trajectories, or maps (e.g., Li et al, 2023;Yuan et al, 2022). As an example, Figure 2 shows a linear hierarchy where attribute 𝛼 𝐽 is mastered before 𝛼 𝐾 , which in turn must be mastered before 𝛼 𝐿 .…”