UC Berkeley

The MIRID (Model with Internal Restrictions on Item Difficulty; Butter, 199) model has been useful for investigating cognitive behavior in terms of the processes that lead to that behavior. The main objective of the MIRID model is to enable one to test how component processes influence the complex cognitive behavior in terms of the item parameters. The original MIRID model is indeed a fairly restricted model for a number of reasons. One of these restrictions is that the model treats items as fixed and does not fit measurement contexts where the concept of the random items is needed. In my dissertation, I propose random item approaches to the MIRID model, and conduct both simulation and empirical studies to test and illustrate the random item MIRID models. Finally this study explores a multidimensional version of random item MIRID models.