Daniel Bolt Professor, Quantitative Methods PhD, 1999, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Room 1086, Educational Sciences Building Phone: (608) 262-4938 Email: dmbolt@wisc.edu

Dr. Bolt joined the department in the spring of 1999, coming from the Laboratory for Educational and Psychological Measurement at the University of Illinois. In addition to his own research, he collaborates on various projects related to the development and statistical analysis of educational and psychological tests. Dr. Bolt teaches courses in test theory, factor analysis, and hierarchical linear modeling.

RESEARCH STATEMENT
"My interests are in the theory and application of psychometric methods in education and psychology. I am especially interested in the application of latent variable models for purposes of test validation, assessment of individual differences (such as response styles), and cognitive diagnosis.

Most of my research is in item response theory (IRT), including its application to issues such as differential item functioning and test dimensionality assessment. I am also interested in the development of nonparametric IRT methods, which relax certain modeling assumptions and have the potential to increase the flexibility and efficiency of IRT in many testing applications."

REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS
Suh, Y-S. & Bolt, D.M. (in press).  Nested logit models for multiple choice data. Psychometrika.

Bolt, D.M. & Johnson, T.R. (2009).  Applications of a MIRT model to self-report measures: Addressing score bias and DIF due to individual differences in response style. Applied Psychological Measurement, 33, 335-352.

Johnson, T.R. & Bolt, D.M. (in press).  On the use of factor-analytic multinomial logit item response models to account for individual differences in response style. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics.

Kim, J-S. & Bolt, D.M. (2007).  Markov chain Monte Carlo estimation of item response models.  Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 26, 38-51.

Bolt, D.M., & Gierl, M.J. (2006). Application of a regression correction procedure to three nonparametric tests of DIF: Implications for local and global DIF detection.  Journal of Educational Measurement, 43, 31 3-333.

Li, Y., Bolt, D.M. & Fu, J. (2006).  A comparison of alternative models for testlets. Applied Psychological Measurement, 30, 3-21.

Mroch, A. & Bolt, D.M. (2006). A simulation comparison of parametric and nonparametric dimensionality detection procedures. Applied Measurement in Education, 19, 67-9 1.

Bolt, D.M. (2005).  Limited and full-information IRT estimation. In A. Maydeu-Olivares and J. McArdle (Eds.), Contemporary Psychometrics (pp.27-71). Lawrence-Erlbaum.

Li, Y., Bolt, D.M. & Fu, J. (2005).   A test characteristic curve linking method for the testlet model. Applied Psychological Measurement, 29, 340-356.

Bolt, D.M., Hare, R.D., Vitale, J. E., & Newman, J.P. (2004). A multigroup item response theory analysis of the Psychopathy Checklist—Revised. Psychological Assessment, 16, 155-168.

Bolt, D.M. & Lall, V.F. (2003). Estimation of compensatory and noncompensatory multidimensional item response models using Markov chain Monte Carlo. Applied Psychological Measurement, 29, 395-414.

Courses Professor Bolt regularly teaches:
EP 964 HLM; EP 773: Factor Analysis; EP 870 Test Theory I; EP 871 Test Theory II