The aim of this 3 day course is to provide participants with an introduction to advanced psychometric models in analysis of multi-item patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). The course will cover confirmatory factor analytic methods for categorical data, Rasch models, and other items response theory (IRT) models. Sessions will be delivered by external staff Jakob Bue Bjorner - Optum Patient Insights, who have an international reputation in advanced psychometric methods and ScHARR Staff Anju Kaeetharuth. The course will be interactive and practical. Sessions will be delivered using lectures and individual and small group practical exercises using real world examples.

Who will benefit from this course?

The course content is aimed at participants with basic knowledge of psychometrics who want to apply advanced methods in scale construction and evaluation. The course content is set at an intermediate/advanced level. It will focus on modern psychometric methods: factor analysis for categorical data, Rasch models, and other IRT models. It will be relevant to researchers, students, clinicians and other health care professionals and members of the pharmaceutical industry interested in using or developing PROMs.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course participants should be able to:

• Perform item-level confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of PROMs using Mplus software
• Understand the assumptions of CFA models, evaluate model fit, and revise the model
• Understand the similarities and differences between CFA models, Rasch models and other IRT models
• Perform IRT analyses using the Mplus software
• Understand the assumptions of Rasch and IRT models and the principles for testing the models
• Use results from IRT analyses to develop or select the optimal PROM for a particular research purpose
• Be aware of the use of other software for CFA, Rasch and IRT analyses.

Course Materials

Course Materials will be provided via a Delegate Course Website approximately 2 weeks prior to the course start date. Hard copies of exercises will be provided throughout the course. Hard copies of powerpoint presentations will not be provided, but these can be printed by delegates before the start of the course via the Delegate Course Website.

Participants are asked to supply their own Laptop throughout the course. Participants will work on laptops using Mplus during the course. An Mplus demo version will be provided during the course for participants who do not have Mplus.

Prior Learning/Entry Requirements

Participants should have completed Part 1 of this course (which runs immediately prior to this course) or have sufficient suitable experience or other suitable qualification(s).

Participants who wish to join the course without completing Part 1 should contact the Short Course Unit in the first instance. Approval from the Course Leader is required for all bookings who will not be completing Part 1, prior to making their booking. 

Course Faculty

Anju Keetharuth is the Course Leader for this course.

Jakob Bjorner

Contact

For further information please do not hesitate to contact us via email at scharr-scu@sheffield.ac.uk

or call +44 (0)114 222 2968.