Software Use in Psychometric Research |
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| Authors: | Gary Skaggs |
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| Institution: | An Associate Professor in the Educational Research and Evaluation Program of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Virginia Tech, 319 East Eggleston, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061;. His research interests include item response theory, test equating, and standard setting. |
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| Abstract: | Research on psychometric methods is heavily dependent on software. The quality, availability, and documentation of such software are critical to the advancement of the field. In 2000, an ad hoc committee of NCME recommended that NCME adopt policies that promote greater availability and better documentation of software. This article follows the ad hoc committee's report by examining the use of software in four top-tiered journals in recent years. The results indicated that the most frequently cited programs were those written by the articles' authors. The documentation and availability for these programs are often not clear, particularly for software used for simulations. The use of proprietary software was not widespread in the four journals, but there is still room for concern in the future. This article recommends that NCME form a permanent committee to address software issues. |
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| Keywords: | freeware NCME policy software |
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