Assessing Local Dependence in Educational Performance ...

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A~x~ng Local Dependence. 9Insert Table 3 about hereWithin-Cluster Correlation A nalv~sTable 4 reports frequency distributions for the average within-cluster eorrclations.Since almost all the correlations are above zero and several are atxwe +.07. the data clearlypoint to positive dependence among the items within several clusters.Insert Table 4 about hereTables 5 and 6 report the average within-cluster correlations for each cluster andscore group along with a qualitative description of the degree of Icx:al dependence. Thelocal dependence in Table 4 is described in Tables 5 and 6 as "moderate" if two or morescore groups have correlations in a cluster of at least .08. The description changes to"substantial" if there are at least two correlations of at least. 10. 4. t ~ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . o . . . . . . .Insert Tables 5 and 6 about here
, .......... -- A=e==.s Lo=a ~ ' xoContent Descriptions for Clusters with Substantial ~Dcpcnd, c.n,,ceAccording to these criteria, dependence is identified a.~ moderate for five clustersand as substantial for seven clusters. For the illustrative purposes of this paper, di~ussionis ~o.vided only for the seven clusters with substantial dependence: RDSI, cluster 4(RDSI-4); RD81, cluster 3 (RD81-3); MC3I, cluster 3 (MC3 i-3); MC83, clusters 4 and 6(MC83-4, MC83~); and MP31, clusters 3 and 8 (MP'31-3, MP31-8). Table7 providesbrief content descriptions of the items in these clusters. In this section o/" the paper weprovide hypothesized explanations of the causes of dcpendcnce in these clusters.Insert Table 7 about hereReading cluster~.. RDSL-4 requires examinees to fill out an enrollment form ['or agymnastics class alter having read a complete sto~" about family relationships whose maincharacter is a young gid. These five items focus on examinee ability to read to perform atask. While it appears that examinees can answer each of these items independent of theother items, the information necessary, to answer the items can be found only in the stor?,'.Items on the 1991 MSPAP intended to assess reading to perform a task were intentionallydeveloped to be text dependent. Neither examincc prior knowledge nor conjecture wouldhelp examinees form responses to these items. This dependence on the sto~" to answerthese questions may be the source of the dependence among these items. The source ofdependency in these items appears to be similar to sources of dependency in earlieranalyses of reading comprehension items in multiple-choice tests (e.g., Green &
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