IRT studies of many groups: the alignment method

Asparouhov and Muthen (2014) presented a new method for multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), referred to as the alignment method. The alignment method can be used to estimate group-specific factor means and variances without requiring exact measurement invariance. A strength of the method is the ability to conveniently estimate models for many groups, such as with comparisons of countries. This paper focuses on IRT applications of the alignment method. An empirical investigation is made of binary knowledge items administered in two separate surveys of a set of countries. A Monte Carlo study is presented that shows how the quality of the alignment can be assessed.