A Dynamic, Ordinal Gaussian Process Item Response Theoretic Model

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Hauptverfasser: Chen, Yehu, Montgomery, Jacob, Garnett, Roman
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Chen, Yehu
Montgomery, Jacob
Garnett, Roman
author_facet Chen, Yehu
Montgomery, Jacob
Garnett, Roman
contents Social scientists are often interested in using ordinal indicators to estimate latent traits that change over time. Frequently, this is done with item response theoretic (IRT) models that describe the relationship between those latent traits and observed indicators. We combine recent advances in Bayesian nonparametric IRT, which makes minimal assumptions on shapes of item response functions, and Gaussian process time series methods to capture dynamic structures in latent traits from longitudinal observations. We propose a generalized dynamic Gaussian process item response theory (GD-GPIRT) as well as a Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling algorithm for estimation of both latent traits and response functions. We evaluate GD-GPIRT in simulation studies against baselines in dynamic IRT, and apply it to various substantive studies, including assessing public opinions on economy environment and congressional ideology related to abortion debate.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_02643
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Dynamic, Ordinal Gaussian Process Item Response Theoretic Model
Chen, Yehu
Montgomery, Jacob
Garnett, Roman
Methodology
Machine Learning
Social scientists are often interested in using ordinal indicators to estimate latent traits that change over time. Frequently, this is done with item response theoretic (IRT) models that describe the relationship between those latent traits and observed indicators. We combine recent advances in Bayesian nonparametric IRT, which makes minimal assumptions on shapes of item response functions, and Gaussian process time series methods to capture dynamic structures in latent traits from longitudinal observations. We propose a generalized dynamic Gaussian process item response theory (GD-GPIRT) as well as a Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling algorithm for estimation of both latent traits and response functions. We evaluate GD-GPIRT in simulation studies against baselines in dynamic IRT, and apply it to various substantive studies, including assessing public opinions on economy environment and congressional ideology related to abortion debate.
title A Dynamic, Ordinal Gaussian Process Item Response Theoretic Model
topic Methodology
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.02643