摘要：A framework for multilevel latent variable modeling is presented
that includes many existing models as special cases. It is shown that parameters
can be estimated by maximum likelihood using a special variant of the
EM algorithm. An application is presented from the field of school effectiveness
research. This application uses a novel multilevel mixture item response
model which clusters schools based on the students¡¯ latent abilities and the
item difficulties.
关键词：Factor Analysis, Mixture Models, Multilevel Analysis, Mixed
Models, Generalized Linear Models, Item Response Theory, Maximum Likelihood
Estimation, Item Bias Analysis.
