Department of Psychiatry and Psychology, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL 32224, USA.
Arch Clin Neuropsychol. 2011 Aug;26(5):434-44. doi: 10.1093/arclin/acr042. Epub 2011 May 18.
The Boston Naming Test is one of the most widely used neuropsychological instruments; yet, there has been limited use of modern psychometric methods to investigate its properties at the item level. The current study used Item response theory to examine each item's difficulty and discrimination properties, as well as the test's measurement precision across the range of naming ability. Participants included 300 consecutive referrals to the outpatient neuropsychology service at Mayo Clinic in Florida. Results showed that successive items do not necessarily reflect a monotonic increase in psychometric difficulty, some items are inadequate to distinguish individuals at various levels of naming ability, multiple items provide redundant psychometric information, and measurement precision is greatest for persons within a low-average range of ability. These findings may be used to develop short forms, improve reliability in future test versions by replacing psychometrically poor items, and analyze profiles of intra-individual variability.
波士顿命名测试是最广泛使用的神经心理学工具之一；然而，在项目层面上，很少使用现代心理测量方法来研究其特性。本研究使用项目反应理论来检查每个项目的难度和区分度特性，以及测试在命名能力范围内的测量精度。参与者包括佛罗里达州梅奥诊所门诊神经心理学服务的 300 名连续转诊患者。结果表明，连续的项目不一定反映心理测量难度的单调递增，有些项目不足以区分不同命名能力水平的个体，多个项目提供冗余的心理测量信息，并且在能力的低平均范围内，测量精度最大。这些发现可用于开发简短形式，通过替换心理测量较差的项目来提高未来测试版本的可靠性，并分析个体内变异性的分布。
