Background:Recently, the study of territorial differences in educational outcomes has assumed a particular importance for the policy strategies related to the socioeconomic conditions of different geographical areas. In Italy, international surveys for student assessments have introduced a...

In testing, item response theory models are widely used in order to estimate item parameters and individual abilities. However, even unidimensional models require a considerable sample size so that all parameters can be estimated precisely. The introduction of empirical prior information about...

The aim of this paper is to analyze academic achievement of a cohort of students enrolled in 2001 at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Bologna by using a latent growth model for longitudinal data. The basic idea of this approach is that individuals differ in their growth over time...