bugfix in profiles(): correct domain names when
different booklets don’t have the same domains
improvements leading to lower autocorrelation for
fit_enorm(..., method='Bayes')
plausible_scores can now return scores per item to
generate complete (partially imputed) datasets
latent_cor now uses all observations for model fitting while still using only complete observations for computing the correlations
bugfix, using ‘booklet_id’ as a covariate in plausible_values no longer causes a crash.
update at request of cran
requires R >= 4.1
A small change in the interface for the plausible_values and
plausible_scores functions, the slightly different argument
parms_draw replaces use_draw.
The argument standard_errors in functions
ability and ability_tables has been removed.
Standard errors are now always returned.
argument prior.dist in plausible values has become
prior_dist to maintain a consistent naming scheme in
dexter.
Internal changes in the plausible values function will cause a
slight increase in confidence intervals for population estimates when
using multiple draws. We think this is more realistic. On the other
hand, population estimates based on plausible values will now be more
stable over different seeds or consecutive calls of
plausible_values. Use of the same seed no longer guarantees
the exact same outcomes across different computers.
plot.prmsdesign=distinct(x,booklet_id,item_id) as the design
argument, but it is better practice to use design information from a
separate source to prevent errors.latent_cor which does what the name
impliesprobability_to_passpobability_to_pass which occurred when not
all scores were achievedcoef.prms to retrieve
variance-covariance matrix or posterior of item parametersfixed bug that caused an error message on some apple computers when using a matrix datasource
removed unit tests for Solaris as we have no way to test on solaris, in effect this means dexter does not support solaris anymore
solved bug: accidental change of input data.frame in ability
solved bug: unnecessary error message when input parameters are data.frame
weighted likelihood estimate option in ability() and
ability_tables()
added function r_score_IM() for simulation of item
responses according to the interaction model
added function p_score which provides conditional score distributions
ability, plausible_values and plausible_scores accept a tidy data.frame of parameters
it is now possible to use get() in
predicates
bugfix for mixed up plots in the interaction model when using a matrix dataSrc
bugfix: reinstated check for unobserved zero score categories in fit_enorm (check was accidentally removed in 1.0)
bugfix: uppercase letters in variable names in profile_plot work again
the interfaces for the standard setting functions have changed, these functions have new names and different arguments
the interface for probability_to_pass has changed
the name of the column ‘sumScore’, outputted by a number of functions, has changed to ‘booklet_score’
dataSrc may now also be a wide format data matrix (in addition to a database or a long format data.frame)
fit_enorm, ability and plausible_values have an extra argument ‘merge_within_persons’ which determines if different booklets for the same person are combined
plausible_values can use a normal or a mixture prior
the dependency on dbplyr has been removed. This again allows the use of data.frame columns in predicates (this caused error messages when using dbplyr 1.4+)
generally faster due to the excellent Rcpp and RcppArmadillo packages
new function design_info() returns extensive
information about incomplete test designs. Functions
design_as_network() and design_is_connected()
are deprecated.
correction for a bug which caused NA’s in plausible values for booklets with 1 respondent and nPV>1
new functions information() and
expected_score() for tests and items in the ENORM.
change in the algorithm for MLE estimation method in ability and ability_tables. The new algorithm is more precise so small changes in (the lower digits of) computed theta values may occur with respect to previous versions of dexter.
corrected a bug in the reporting of standard errors for Bayesian estimation of the ENORM. The SE’s reported in previous versions of dexter were too high.
corrected bug in plot for DIF (item labels were reversed) introduced in 0.8.0
significant speed increases in plausible_values, plausible_scores, ability and ability_tables
added plot method for the extended nominal response model
new function add_response_data() for importing
normalized data
profiles() and profile_tables()
functions added for analysis of individual deviation profiles (misfit)
compared to the fitted model.
bugfix for solaris
You may want to take a look at the new sister package, dextergui
support for RSQLite release 2.1.0+ which broke dexter 0.6.0.
probability_to_pass() function added for equating to
a reference test that is connected to a target test.
ability_tables() function added to generate score
transformation tables for arbitrary subsets of items.
ability() and ability_tables() can now also
take Jeffreys prior and variatons of the normal prior and can optionally
output standard errors.
plausible_scores() function added to generate scores
on arbitrary itemsets (or the entire bank).
Updates to documentation.
plausible_values() can now work with
covariates.
fit_enorm() can optionally take fixed_parameters
into account.
Significant speed increases in profile_plot, iTIA and iModels and minor speed increases in other functions.
Further includes more user control over plotting parameters, updates to documentation, several bugfixes and some smaller updates.
We go straight from version 0.1.7 to version 0.4.2 in a major new release. The functionality envisaged for two other related packages, enorm and roger, has now been all incorporated into dexter.
The database has been completely rewritten. Databases created with 0.1.7 can be imported but are no longer maintained.
Many functions now support flexible subsetting of data through a predicate expression; furthermore, the data source can be either the dexter database (more usual), or a data frame or tibble. The latter can be useful in simple simulations or in some non-standard situations.
Basic test and item analysis has been extended with two interactive tools based on shiny, and with an exploratory tool to search for DIF.
Version 0.4.2 estimates the Extended NOminal Response Model (ENORM) by either CML or a Gibbs sampler, computes person scores by either MLE, EAP, or plausible values, and provides a new test for the hypothesis of no true individual differences. In addition, it supports a method for standard settings known as 3DC.
Several vignettes have been added to explain the new features in detail.