Modeling Not-Reached Items in Timed Tests: A Response Time Censoring Approach

A Note on Latent Traits Estimates under IRT Models with Missingness

“…To address this issue, Guo et al. (2022) proposed a framework to account for NRIs with a RT censoring method. We will refer to the joint model of RAs and RTs under this framework as RA+RT+NRI model.…”

“…When scoring examinees' abilities, under the case without missing responses, the accuracy of ability estimation can be affected by different ability estimation methods and test lengths (Wang et al., 2013). Furthermore, if NRIs/OI occurs, different missing rates and latent correlations also have major effects on the estimation (Guo et al., 2022; Lu et al., 2021). Consequently, performances of Models 1‐6 across the three examinee scoring methods (i.e., MLE, MAP and EAP) were evaluated under different test lengths, latent trait correlations, and missingness conditions.…”

“…Most recently, various time‐based approaches have been developed to model missingness due to NRIs and OIs (e.g., Guo, 2021; Guo et al., 2022; Lu and Wang, 2020; Lu et al., 2021; Pohl et al., 2019; Ulitzsch et al., 2020). With the increased prevalence of computer‐based assessments, it is easy to collect and observe the reaction times that individuals spent on each item, regardless of whether the response or missingness occurs.…”

“…However, as Guo et al. (2022) argued, examinees' first NRIs are informative since the corresponding potential responses are censored when RTs on these items exceed the remaining times on the test. To address this issue, Guo et al.…”

“…To address this issue, Guo et al. (2022) proposed an approach to account for the missing mechanisms of NRIs via RT censoring under which the censoring mechanism is directly incorporated into the observed likelihood of item responses and RTs.…”