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Virginia Tech

Predictive Modeling of Uniform Differential Item Functioning Preservation Likelihoods After Applying Disclosure Avoidance Techniques to Protect Privacy

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

The need to publish and disseminate data continues to grow. Administrators of large-scale educational assessment should provide examinee microdata in addition to publishing assessment reports. Disclosure avoidance methods are applied to the data to protect examinee privacy before doing so, while attempting to preserve as many item statistical properties as possible. When important properties like differential item functioning are lost due to these disclosure avoidance methods, the microdata can give off misleading messages of effectiveness in measuring the test construct. In this research study, I investigated the preservation of differential item functioning in a large-scale assessment after disclosure avoidance methods have been applied to the data. After applying data swapping to protect the data, I attempted to empirically model and explain the likelihood of preserving various levels of differential item functioning as a function of several factors including the data swapping rate, the reference-to-focal group ratio, the type of item scoring, and the level of DIF prior to data swapping.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Ph. D.
Level thesis:degree_level
doctoral
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Educational Research and Evaluation
Department dc:contributor.department
Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2014

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Lemons, Marlow Q.
Chairs dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Skaggs, Gary E.
  • Sinha, Bimal K.
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Miyazaki, Yasuo
  • Terrell, George R.
  • Zayatz, Laura Voshell

Subjects

dc:subject × 3

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
vt_gsexam:2486
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/46980

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Lemons, Marlow Q.. Predictive Modeling of Uniform Differential Item Functioning Preservation Likelihoods After Applying Disclosure Avoidance Techniques to Protect Privacy. doctoral thesis, Virginia Tech, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/46980