Likelihood-Based Estimation of Model-Derived Oral Reading Fluency

As part of the effort to develop an improved oral reading fluency (ORF) assessment system, Kara et al. estimated the ORF scores based on a latent variable psychometric model of accuracy and speed for ORF data via a fully Bayesian approach. This study further investigates likelihood-based estimators for the model-derived ORF scores, including maximum likelihood estimator (MLE), maximum a posteriori (MAP), and expected a posteriori (EAP), as well as their standard errors. The proposed estimators were demonstrated with a real ORF assessment dataset. Also, the estimation of model-derived ORF scores and their standard errors by the proposed estimators were evaluated through a simulation study. The fully Bayesian approach was included as a comparison in the real data analysis and the simulation study. Results demonstrated that the three likelihood-based approaches for the model-derived ORF scores and their standard error estimation performed satisfactorily.