A Flexible Full-Information Approach to the Modeling of Response Styles

We present a flexible full-information approach to modeling multiple user-defined response styles across multiple constructs of interest. The model is based on a novel parameterization of the multidimensional nominal response model that separates estimation of overall item slopes from the scoring functions (indicating the order of categories) for each item and latent trait. This feature allows the definition of response styles to vary across items as well as overall item slopes that vary across items for both substantive and response style dimensions. We compared the model with similar approaches using examples from the smoking initiative of the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System. A small set of simulations showed that the estimation approach is able to recover model parameters, factor scores, and reasonable estimates of standard errors. Furthermore, these simulations suggest that failing to include response style factors (when present in the data generating model) has adverse consequences for substantive trait factor score recovery.