Enhancing Item Response Theory (IRT) Software

The Outcomes Research Branch (ORB) is funding a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract with Scientific Software International (SSI) to develop new software that employs both traditional and modern measurement methods (i.e., item response theory [IRT] modeling) to respond to the needs of cancer outcomes, health surveillance, and behavioral researchers.

The new software will be user-friendly, flexible, and will include a variety of IRT models for both dichotomous and polytomous response data. It will have sophisticated graphic capabilities, tests of model fit, and extensions of the software for multi-dimensional modeling, testing for differential item functioning, linking questionnaires, and computerized-adaptive testing.

In September 2007, SSI began phase II of their software development.