Abstract

ARAUJO, Eutalia Aparecida Candido de; ANDRADE, Dalton Francisco de  and  BORTOLOTTI, Silvana Ligia Vincenzi. Item response theory. Rev. esc. enferm. USP [online]. 2009, vol.43, n.spe, pp. 1000-1008. ISSN 0080-6234.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0080-62342009000500003.

The concern with measures of psychological traits is old and many studies and proposals of methods were developed to achieve this goal. Among these proposed methods highlights the Item Response Theory (IRT) that, in principle, came to complete limitations of the Classical Test Theory, which is widely used until nowadays in the measurement of psychological traits. The main point of IRT is that it takes into account the item in particular, not relieving the total scores; therefore, the findings do not only depend on the test or questionnaire, but on each item that composes it. This article proposes to present this Theory that revolutionized the theory of measures.

Keywords : Measurements; methods and theories; Psychometrics; Psychological tests; Questionnaires.