A new visualization and conceptualization of categorical longitudinal development: measurement invariance and change

The Overlapping Waves Model (OWM) is a metaphor introduced by Siegler (1996) to illustrate a typical sequence of increasing and decreasing use of strategies during development. Going beyond metaphor, a new model synthesized from Latent Growth Modeling (LGM) and Item Response Theory (IRT) will be pre...

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Main Author: Boom, Jan
Format: Online
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2015
Online Access:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4375919/
id pubmed-4375919
recordtype oai_dc
spelling pubmed-43759192015-04-13 A new visualization and conceptualization of categorical longitudinal development: measurement invariance and change Boom, Jan Psychology The Overlapping Waves Model (OWM) is a metaphor introduced by Siegler (1996) to illustrate a typical sequence of increasing and decreasing use of strategies during development. Going beyond metaphor, a new model synthesized from Latent Growth Modeling (LGM) and Item Response Theory (IRT) will be presented to analyze such categorical longitudinal data. Use of strategies can be scored as a variable with only a few ordinal categories. IRT provides the means to relate the usage of strategies to position on an underlying developmental dimension. LGM allows to model movement of individuals along this dimension, acknowledging individual differences both in starting point and in speed of progress. Measuring and modeling such strategy development requires that at each time point the same categories are used, in the sense that item difficulties must remain invariant over time. Whether, discrimination can be relaxed is still an issue. The problem that had to be solved was disentangling the between-person-individual differences from real intra-individual developmental differences. Figures with polytomous or multi-category Item Characteristic Curves (ICC's) resemble the OWM in many respects. However, such figures are usually taken to represent inter-individual differences, whereas the OWM usually represents development (so intra-individual differences), and we cannot have both at the same time. The solution came from creating a framework with ability differences on one axis and the effect of time on another axis, resulting in a 3-D model. These (orthogonal) dimensions make it possible to adequately conceptualize measurement invariance in this complex context. As the result is difficult to conceptualize without extensive visualization, special 3-D figures will be used to illustrate and a dynamic (rotatable and scalable) version will be made available as Computable Document Format object (Mathematica). The model was successfully applied in several microgenetic studies. Frontiers Media S.A. 2015-03-27 /pmc/articles/PMC4375919/ /pubmed/25870567 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00289 Text en Copyright © 2015 Boom. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
repository_type Open Access Journal
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building NCBI PubMed
collection Online Access
language English
format Online
author Boom, Jan
spellingShingle Boom, Jan
A new visualization and conceptualization of categorical longitudinal development: measurement invariance and change
author_facet Boom, Jan
author_sort Boom, Jan
title A new visualization and conceptualization of categorical longitudinal development: measurement invariance and change
title_short A new visualization and conceptualization of categorical longitudinal development: measurement invariance and change
title_full A new visualization and conceptualization of categorical longitudinal development: measurement invariance and change
title_fullStr A new visualization and conceptualization of categorical longitudinal development: measurement invariance and change
title_full_unstemmed A new visualization and conceptualization of categorical longitudinal development: measurement invariance and change
title_sort new visualization and conceptualization of categorical longitudinal development: measurement invariance and change
description The Overlapping Waves Model (OWM) is a metaphor introduced by Siegler (1996) to illustrate a typical sequence of increasing and decreasing use of strategies during development. Going beyond metaphor, a new model synthesized from Latent Growth Modeling (LGM) and Item Response Theory (IRT) will be presented to analyze such categorical longitudinal data. Use of strategies can be scored as a variable with only a few ordinal categories. IRT provides the means to relate the usage of strategies to position on an underlying developmental dimension. LGM allows to model movement of individuals along this dimension, acknowledging individual differences both in starting point and in speed of progress. Measuring and modeling such strategy development requires that at each time point the same categories are used, in the sense that item difficulties must remain invariant over time. Whether, discrimination can be relaxed is still an issue. The problem that had to be solved was disentangling the between-person-individual differences from real intra-individual developmental differences. Figures with polytomous or multi-category Item Characteristic Curves (ICC's) resemble the OWM in many respects. However, such figures are usually taken to represent inter-individual differences, whereas the OWM usually represents development (so intra-individual differences), and we cannot have both at the same time. The solution came from creating a framework with ability differences on one axis and the effect of time on another axis, resulting in a 3-D model. These (orthogonal) dimensions make it possible to adequately conceptualize measurement invariance in this complex context. As the result is difficult to conceptualize without extensive visualization, special 3-D figures will be used to illustrate and a dynamic (rotatable and scalable) version will be made available as Computable Document Format object (Mathematica). The model was successfully applied in several microgenetic studies.
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
publishDate 2015
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4375919/
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