The Realization of Conjoint Measurement in the Rasch model

Measurement has been an integral part of research in the behavioral sciences for the last couple of centuries. With the great advances made in empirical science in general and physics in particular during the scientific revolution in Europe, psychologists made every effort to show that measurement is possible in their own field. Despite the early attempts to provide theoretical underpinnings for this claim, the efforts were mainly led astray by the introduction of Stevens’s view of measurement during the ۱۹۴۰s. Despite this, other attempts provided more theoretically justified frameworks for measurement in the behavioral sciences. One such framework is Conjoint Measurement. This paper provides an introduction to conjoint measurement. Then, it is argued that Rasch models may actually considered as realizations of this framework in practice.

Keywords:

Rasch model , IRT , Language testing , Measurement