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Learning Large Q-Matrix by Restricted Boltzmann Machines

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Chengcheng Li,
Chenchen Ma and
Gongjun XuOpen the ORCID record for Gongjun Xu[Opens in a new window]
Chengcheng Li
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Chenchen Ma
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Gongjun Xu*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
*
Correspondence should be made to Gongjun Xu, Department of Statistics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA. Email: gongjun@umich.edu
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Abstract

Estimation of the large Q-matrix in cognitive diagnosis models (CDMs) with many items and latent attributes from observational data has been a huge challenge due to its high computational cost. Borrowing ideas from deep learning literature, we propose to learn the large Q-matrix by restricted Boltzmann machines (RBMs) to overcome the computational difficulties. In this paper, key relationships between RBMs and CDMs are identified. Consistent and robust learning of the Q-matrix in various CDMs is shown to be valid under certain conditions. Our simulation studies under different CDM settings show that RBMs not only outperform the existing methods in terms of learning speed, but also maintain good recovery accuracy of the Q-matrix. In the end, we illustrate the applicability and effectiveness of our method through a TIMSS mathematics data set.

Keywords

Cognitive diagnosis modelsQ-matrixRestricted Boltzmann machines

Information

Type
Theory & Methods
Information
Psychometrika , Volume 87 , Issue 3 , September 2022, pp. 1010 - 1041
Copyright
Copyright © 2022 The Author(s) under exclusive licence to The Psychometric Society

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Footnotes

Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11336-021-09828-4.

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Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11336-021-09828-4.
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