Evaluation of Procedures for Linking Multidimensional Item Calibrations.

This paper evaluated multidimensional linking procedures with which multidimensional test data from two separate calibrations were put on a common scale. Data were simulated with known ability distributions varying on two factors which made linking necessary: mean vector differences and variance-covariance (v-c) matrix differences. After the calibrations of multidimensional item parameters, blocks of means from item parameter estimates were used to equate the two groups. The linking was effective for mean vector differences. The linking for v-c matrix differences was less effective, but encouraging. Suggestions for future research are provided. Four tables are attached. (Contains 6 references.) (Author)