Dichotomous Equivalents to Rating Scales

There are numerous ways to conceptualize rating scales. One useful conceptualization is to imagine that the rating scale is equivalent to a set of dichotomous items. Huynh Huynh investigated this: Huynh H. (1994) On equivalence between a partial credit item and a set of independent Rasch binary items. Psychometrika, 59, 111-119, and Huynh H. (1996) Decomposition of a Rasch partial credit item into independent binary and indecomposable trinary items. Psychometrika, 61, 31-39.

A crucial finding is that the Rasch-Andrich thresholds must advance (i.e., not exhibit "threshold disordering") for a polytomy to have the mathematical properties of a set of dichotomies. But merely advancing is not enough.

Consider a polytomy with m+1 ordinally advancing categories. There are m transition points, so this could be conceptualized as m dichotomies. As the Rasch-Andrich thresholds for the polytomy become further apart then the set of dichotomous items would have a wider difficulty range. The boundary condition is that the m dichotomies be of equal difficulty. Then a score of k on the polytomous item would be equivalent to scoring k on m equally-difficulty dichotomies.

A set of equally difficulty dichotomies constitute a set of Bernoulli (binomial) trials. The polytomous Rasch model for this is (with the familiar notation):

This provides the lower limits by which Rasch-Andrich thresholds must advance in order that a polytomy have the same mathematical properties as a set of dichotomies. A useful rule-of-thumb is "thresholds must advance by one-logit". The exact values are tabulated below.

John Michael Linacre

Dichotomous Equivalents to Rating Scales, Linacre J.M. … Rasch Measurement Transactions, 2006, 20:1 p. 1052

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Invariant Measurement: Using Rasch Models in the Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences, 2nd Edn. George Engelhard, Jr. & Jue Wang	Applying the Rasch Model (Winsteps, Facets) 4th Ed., Bond, Yan, Heene	Advances in Rasch Analyses in the Human Sciences (Winsteps, Facets) 1st Ed., Boone, Staver	Advances in Applications of Rasch Measurement in Science Education, X. Liu & W. J. Boone	Rasch Analysis in the Human Sciences (Winsteps) Boone, Staver, Yale
Introduction to Many-Facet Rasch Measurement (Facets), Thomas Eckes	Statistical Analyses for Language Testers (Facets), Rita Green	Invariant Measurement with Raters and Rating Scales: Rasch Models for Rater-Mediated Assessments (Facets), George Engelhard, Jr. & Stefanie Wind	Aplicação do Modelo de Rasch (Português), de Bond, Trevor G., Fox, Christine M	Appliquer le modèle de Rasch: Défis et pistes de solution (Winsteps) E. Dionne, S. Béland
Exploring Rating Scale Functioning for Survey Research (R, Facets), Stefanie Wind	Rasch Measurement: Applications, Khine	Winsteps Tutorials - free Facets Tutorials - free	Many-Facet Rasch Measurement (Facets) - free, J.M. Linacre	Fairness, Justice and Language Assessment (Winsteps, Facets), McNamara, Knoch, Fan
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Rasch Models: Foundations, Recent Developments, and Applications, Fischer & Molenaar	Probabilistic Models for Some Intelligence and Attainment Tests, Georg Rasch	Rasch Models for Measurement, David Andrich	Constructing Measures, Mark Wilson	Best Test Design - free, Wright & Stone Rating Scale Analysis - free, Wright & Masters
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