Different Approaches to Covariate Inclusion in the Mixture Rasch Model

The present study investigates different approaches to adding covariates and the impact in fitting mixture item response theory models. Mixture item response theory models serve as an important methodology for tackling several psychometric issues in test development, including the detection of latent differential item functioning. A Monte Carlo simulation study is conducted in which data generated according to a two-class mixture Rasch model with both dichotomous and continuous covariates are fitted to several mixture Rasch models with misspecified covariates to examine the effects of covariate inclusion on model parameter estimation. In addition, both complete response data and incomplete response data with different types of missingness are considered in the present study in order to simulate practical assessment settings. Parameter estimation is carried out within a Bayesian framework vis-à-vis Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms.