A Novel Indicator to Correct for Individual Reported Heterogeneity. An Application to Self-Evaluation of Later-Life Depression.

Program evaluations often investigate complex or multi-dimensional constructs, such as individual opinions or attitudes, by means of ratings. A different interpretation of the same question may affect cross-country comparability, leading to the Differential Item Functioning problem. Anchoring vignettes were introduced in the literature as a way to adjust self-evaluations from this interpersonal incomparability.

Multilevel IRT models for the analysis of satisfaction for distance learning during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Covid-19 pandemic played a relevant role in the diffusion of distance learning alternatives to "traditional" learning based on classroom activities, to allow university students to continue attending lessons during the most severe phases of the pandemic. In such a context, investigating the students' perspective on distance learning provides useful information to stakeholders to improve effective educational strategies, which could be useful also after the end of the emergency to favor the digital transformation in the higher educational setting. Here we focus on the satisfaction in distance learning for Italian university students.

A hybrid approach for the analysis of complex categorical data structures: assessment of latent distance learning perception in higher education.

A long tradition of analysing ordinal response data deals with parametric models, which started with the seminal approach of cumulative models. When data are collected by means of Likert scale survey questions in which several scored items measure one or more latent traits, one of the sore topics is how to deal with the ordered categories. A stacked ensemble (or hybrid) model is introduced in the proposal to tackle the limitations of summing up the items.

The number of response categories in ordered response models.

The choice of the number of response categories is a crucial issue in categorization of a continuous response. The paper exploits the Proportional Odds Models' property which allows to generate ordinal responses with a different number of categories from the same underlying variable. It investigates the asymptotic efficiency of the estimators of the regression coefficients and the accuracy of the derived inferential procedures when varies.

Latent trait models for perceived risk assessment using a Covid-19 data survey.

Aim of the contribution is analyzing potential events that may negatively impact individuals, assets, and/or the environment, and making judgments about the perceived personal and social riskiness of Covid-19 compared to other hazards belonging to health (AIDS, cancer, infarction), environmental (climate change), behavioral (serious car accidents), and technological (nuclear weapons) domains. The comparative risk analysis has been performed on a survey data collected during the first Italian Covid-19 lockdown. An item response theory model for polytomously scored items has been implemented for the analysis of the positioning of Covid-19 with respect to the other hazards in terms of perceived risk.

Testing conditional independence in sets of I × J tables by means of moment and correlation score tests with application to HPV vaccine.

A new testing approach is described for improving statistical tests of independence in sets of tables stratified on one or more relevant factors in case of categorical (nominal or ordinal) variables. Common tests of independence that exploit the ordinality of one of the variables use a restricted-alternative approach. A different, relaxed-null method is presented.