Item response theory models are measurement models for categorical responses. Traditionally, the models are used in educational testing, where responses to test items can be viewed as indirect measures of latent ability. The test items are scored either dichotomously (correct–incorrect) or by...

Analyzing latent variables is becoming more and more important in several fields, such as clinical research, psychology, educational sciences, ecology, and epidemiology. The item response theory allows analyzing latent variables measured by questionnaires of items with binary or ordinal...