arXiv subjects

Minjeong Jeon

Publications and source records attributed to Minjeong Jeon.

17 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

A Representation-Learning Item Response Model for Identifying Behaviorally Important Actions in PIAAC Process Data

Problem-solving log process data from computer-based assessments provide detailed information about how respondents approach and complete tasks. However, the resulting action sequences are complex and noisy, making it difficult to identify specific behaviors associated with successful performance. This paper proposes a representation-learning item response modeling (IRT) framework for identifying behaviorally important actions while accounting for respondent proficiency and item-level differences. Raw log sequences and timing information are first transformed into action representations that incorporate the hierarchical structure of action labels and the sequential and temporal context in which each action occurs. These respondent-specific representations are then entered as covariates in an extended IRT model, with spike-and-slab priors used to identify action-item combinations associated with response accuracy. The framework therefore evaluates actions contextually rather than as simple occurrence indicators and provides posterior uncertainty for their associations with performance. We apply the approach to problem-solving process data from the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). The analysis identifies a sparse set of actions associated with successful and unsuccessful performance and reveals differences across items in where behavioral information occurs within the problem-solving process.

stat.AP↗

arXiv2026

Analyzing Process Data from Computer-Based Assessments: A Tutorial on Preprocessing, Feature Extraction, and Model-Based Inference

Computer-based assessments routinely generate detailed interaction logs -- commonly referred to as process data -- that record every action a respondent performs during task completion, yet systematic preprocessing guidance, integrated analytical workflows, and cross-method consistency checks remain scarce in the literature. This paper provides a unified, end-to-end analytical framework for analyzing process data from large-scale assessments -- covering the full pipeline from raw log preprocessing to model-based inference -- using the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) Problem Solving in Technology-Rich Environments (PS-TRE) domain as an illustrative example. We first present a systematic preprocessing pipeline -- including timestamp correction, duplicate removal, action block consolidation, and LLM-assisted standardization -- that transforms raw event-level logs into analysis-ready action sequences. We then review and demonstrate two complementary families of analytical methods. The first consists of feature-based methods and their downstream applications, including descriptive process indicators, n-gram analysis with TF--IDF weighting, multidimensional scaling, and process data-informed differential item functioning (DIF) analysis. The second consists of model-based approaches, namely hidden Markov models and the subtask identification procedure. Empirical illustrations using the United States sample illustrate that n-gram-based behavioral clusters carry differential diagnostic information primarily among incorrect respondents, that multidimentionsl scaling-derived features comprehensively reconstruct observed behavioral variables, and that process-informed DIF analyses can identify and mitigate construct-irrelevant sources of group differences. Reproducible R code implementations are provided for all major techniques.

stat.AP↗

arXiv2026

Hierarchical Latent Space Item Response Model for Analyzing Mental Health Vulnerability of Elementary School Students in South Korea

Mental health difficulties among elementary school students represent a growing public health concern in South Korea, yet analytical tools for identifying school-specific vulnerability patterns from item response data remain limited. We propose the hierarchical latent space item response model (HLSIRM), which adds hierarchical respondent effects and an inner-product latent interaction for signed respondent-item associations, yielding a unified interaction map that separates school, individual main effects from school/individual-item interactions. We apply HLSIRM to mental health vulnerability data from 2,210 elementary school students across 35 schools in Incheon, South Korea. Clustering item vectors by directional similarity identifies four empirically derived vulnerability domains. School-level analysis reveals that the absence of counseling experience is the primary vulnerability domain aligned with most school vectors, while stress, depression, and smartphone dependency concentrate in specific schools. Within-school analysis demonstrates how individual student positions in the interaction map translate into targeted intervention strategies that address school-specific needs.

stat.AP↗

arXiv2026

Constructing Reliable Social Networks from Conversational Data: An Ensemble Prompt Engineering Approach with Uncertainty Quantification

Conversational data are central to the study of interaction dynamics and social structures across psychological research. However, constructing structured social networks from unstructured conversational data remains a major methodological challenge. This study presents a pipeline for reliable network construction using prompt engineering. We employ an ensemble of multiple Large Language Models (LLMs) with majority voting to automate utterance classification, overcoming the scalability limitations of manual coding and the generalizability constraints of supervised deep learning. Classification reliability is assessed through an uncertainty quantification framework based on Shannon entropy, which supports systematic human-in-the-loop review of ambiguous cases. The classified utterances are used to construct directed interaction networks for subsequent analysis. We demonstrate the utility of this approach through two illustrative applications to classroom interaction data: network centrality analysis to characterize participant roles, and network mediation analysis using the additive and multiplicative effects network (AMEN) model to examine how interaction structures mediate the relationship between gender and mathematics performance. This pipeline provides a scalable foundation for automated network construction from conversational data across diverse research contexts.

stat.AP↗

arXiv2025

Analysis of Log Data from an International Online Educational Assessment System: A Multi-state Survival Modeling Approach to Reaction Time between and across Action Sequence

With increasingly available computer-based or online assessments, researchers have shown keen interest in analyzing log data to improve our understanding of test takers' problem-solving processes. In this paper, we propose a multi-state survival model (MSM) to action sequence data from log files, focusing on modeling test takers' reaction times between actions, in order to investigate which factors and how they influence test takers' transition speed between actions. We specifically identify the key actions that differentiate correct and incorrect answers, compare transition probabilities between these groups, and analyze their distinct problem-solving patterns. Through simulation studies and sensitivity analyses, we evaluate the robustness of our proposed model. We demonstrate the proposed approach using problem-solving items from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC).

stat.AP↗

arXiv2025

lsirm12pl: An R package for latent space item response modeling

The item response model in latent space (LSIRM; Jeon et al., 2021) uncovers unobserved interactions between respondents and items in the item response data by embedding both in a shared latent metric space. The R package lsirm12pl implements Bayesian estimation of the LSIRM and its extensions for various response types, base model specifications, and missing data handling. Furthermore, lsirm12pl package provides methods to improve model utilization and interpretation, such as clustering item positions on an estimated interaction map. The package also offers convenient summary and plotting options to evaluate and process the estimated results. In this paper, we provide an overview of the LSIRM's methodological foundation and describe several extensions included in the package. We then demonstrate the use of the package with real data examples contained within it.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2024

Expanding on EnCLAP with Auxiliary Retrieval Model for Automated Audio Captioning

In this technical report, we describe our submission to DCASE2024 Challenge Task6 (Automated Audio Captioning) and Task8 (Language-based Audio Retrieval). We develop our approach building upon the EnCLAP audio captioning framework and optimizing it for Task6 of the challenge. Notably, we outline the changes in the underlying components and the incorporation of the reranking process. Additionally, we submit a supplementary retriever model, a byproduct of our modified framework, to Task8. Our proposed systems achieve FENSE score of 0.542 on Task6 and mAP@10 score of 0.386 on Task8, significantly outperforming the baseline models.

eess.AS↗

arXiv2024

Impacts of Innovation School System in Korea: A Latent Space Item Response Model with Neyman-Scott Point Process

South Korea's educational system has faced criticism for its lack of focus on critical thinking and creativity, resulting in high levels of stress and anxiety among students. As part of the government's effort to improve the educational system, the innovation school system was introduced in 2009, which aims to develop students' creativity as well as their non-cognitive skills. To better understand the differences between innovation and regular school systems in South Korea, we propose a novel method that combines the latent space item response model (LSIRM) with the Neyman-Scott (NS) point process model. Our method accounts for the heterogeneity of items and students, captures relationships between respondents and items, and identifies item and student clusters that can provide a comprehensive understanding of students' behaviors/perceptions on non-cognitive outcomes. Our analysis reveals that students in the innovation school system show a higher sense of citizenship, while those in the regular school system tend to associate confidence in appearance with social ability. We compare our model with exploratory item factor analysis in terms of item clustering and find that our approach provides a more detailed and automated analysis. A comparison with exploratory item factor analysis highlights our method's advantages in terms of uncertainty quantification of the clustering process and more detailed and nuanced clustering results. Our method is made available to an existing R package, lsirm12pl.

stat.AP↗

arXiv2023

A latent process model for monitoring progress towards hard-to-measure targets, with applications to mental health and online educational assessments

The recent shift to remote learning and work has aggravated long-standing problems, such as the problem of monitoring the mental health of individuals and the progress of students towards learning targets. We introduce a novel latent process model with a view to monitoring the progress of individuals towards a hard-to-measure target of interest, measured by a set of variables. The latent process model is based on the idea of embedding both individuals and variables measuring progress towards the target of interest in a shared metric space, interpreted as an interaction map that captures interactions between individuals and variables. The fact that individuals are embedded in the same metric space as the target helps assess the progress of individuals towards the target. We demonstrate, with the help of simulations and applications, that the latent process model enables a novel look at mental health and online educational assessments in disadvantaged subpopulations.

stat.AP↗

arXiv2023

A Latent Space Accumulator Model for Response Time: Applications to Cognitive Assessment Data

Response time has attracted increased interest in educational and psychological assessment for, e.g., measuring test takers' processing speed, improving the measurement accuracy of ability, and understanding aberrant response behavior. Most models for response time analysis are based on a parametric assumption about the response time distribution. The Cox proportional hazard model has been utilized for response time analysis for the advantages of not requiring a distributional assumption of response time and enabling meaningful interpretations with respect to response processes. In this paper, we present a new version of the proportional hazard model, called a latent space accumulator model, for cognitive assessment data based on accumulators for two competing response outcomes, such as correct vs. incorrect responses. The proposed model extends a previous accumulator model by capturing dependencies between respondents and test items across accumulators in the form of distances in a two-dimensional Euclidean space. A fully Bayesian approach is developed to estimate the proposed model. The utilities of the proposed model are illustrated with two real data examples.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2023

How social networks influence human behavior: An integrated latent space approach for differential social influence

How social networks influence human behavior has been an interesting topic in applied research. Existing methods often utilized scale-level behavioral data to estimate the influence of a social network on human behavior. This study proposes a novel approach to studying social influence that utilizes item-level behavioral measures. Under the latent space modeling framework, we integrate the two interaction maps for respondents' social network data and item-level behavior measures. The interaction map visualizes the association between the latent homophily of the respondents and their behaviors measured at the item level in a low-dimensional latent space, revealing the potential, differential social influence effects across specific behaviors measured at the item level. We also measure overall social influence as the impact of the interaction map configuration contributed by the social network data on the behavior data. The performance and properties of the proposed approach are evaluated via simulation studies. We apply the proposed model to an empirical dataset to demonstrate how the students' friendship network influences their participation in school activities.

cs.SI↗

arXiv2022

Comparing multiple latent space embeddings using topological analysis

The latent space model is one of the well-known methods for statistical inference of network data. While the model has been much studied for a single network, it has not attracted much attention to analyze collectively when multiple networks and their latent embeddings are present. We adopt a topology-based representation of latent space embeddings to learn over a population of network model fits, which allows us to compare networks of potentially varying sizes in an invariant manner to label permutation and rigid motion. This approach enables us to propose algorithms for clustering and multi-sample hypothesis tests by adopting well-established theories for Hilbert space-valued analysis. After the proposed method is validated via simulated examples, we apply the framework to analyze educational survey data from Korean innovative school reform.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2022

Multilevel Network Item Response Modeling for Discovering Differences Between Innovation and Regular School Systems in Korea

The innovation school system in South Korea has been developed in response to the traditional high-pressure school system in South Korea, with a view to cultivating a bottom-up and student-centered educational culture. Despite its ambitious goals, questions have been raised about the success of the innovation school system. Leveraging data from the Gyeonggi Education Panel Study (GEPS) along with advances in the statistical analysis of network data and educational data, we compare the two school systems in more depth. We find that some schools are indeed different from others, and those differences are not detected by conventional multilevel models. Having said that, we do not find much evidence that the innovation school system differs from the regular school system in terms of self-reported mental well-being, although we do detect differences among some schools that appear to be unrelated to the school system.

stat.AP↗

arXiv2021

Bayesian Shrinkage for Functional Network Models, with Applications to Longitudinal Item Response Data

Longitudinal item response data are common in social science, educational science, and psychology, among other disciplines. Studying the time-varying relationships between items is crucial for educational assessment or designing marketing strategies from survey questions. Although dynamic network models have been widely developed, we cannot apply them directly to item response data because there are multiple systems of nodes with various types of local interactions among items, resulting in multiplex network structures. We propose a new model to study these temporal interactions among items by embedding the functional parameters within the exponential random graph model framework. Inference on such models is difficult because the likelihood functions contain intractable normalizing constants. Furthermore, the number of functional parameters grows exponentially as the number of items increases. Variable selection for such models is not trivial because standard shrinkage approaches do not consider temporal trends in functional parameters. To overcome these challenges, we develop a novel Bayes approach by combining an auxiliary variable MCMC algorithm and a recently-developed functional shrinkage method. We apply our algorithm to survey and review data sets, illustrating that the proposed approach can avoid the evaluation of intractable normalizing constants as well as the detection of significant temporal interactions among items. Through a simulation study under different scenarios, we examine the performance of our algorithm. Our method is, to our knowledge, the first attempt to select functional variables for models with intractable normalizing constants.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2020

Mapping unobserved item-respondent interactions: A latent space item response model with interaction map

Classic item response models assume that all items with the same difficulty have the same response probability among all respondents with the same ability. These assumptions, however, may very well be violated in practice, and it is not straightforward to assess whether these assumptions are violated, because neither the abilities of respondents nor the difficulties of items are observed. An example is an educational assessment where unobserved heterogeneity is present, arising from unobserved variables such as cultural background and upbringing of students, the quality of mentorship and other forms of emotional and professional support received by students, and other unobserved variables that may affect response probabilities. To address such violations of assumptions, we introduce a novel latent space model which assumes that both items and respondents are embedded in an unobserved metric space, with the probability of a correct response decreasing as a function of the distance between the respondent's and the item's position in the latent space. The resulting latent space approach provides an interaction map that represents interactions of respondents and items, and helps derive insightful diagnostic information on items as well as respondents. In practice, such interaction maps enable teachers to detect students from underrepresented groups who need more support than other students. We provide empirical evidence to demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed latent space approach, along with simulation results.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2020

Applying the Network Item Response Model to Student Assessment Data

This study discusses an alternative tool for modeling student assessment data. The model constructs networks from a matrix item responses and attempts to represent these data in low dimensional Euclidean space. This procedure has advantages over common methods used for modeling student assessment data such as Item Response Theory because it relaxes the highly restrictive local-independence assumption. This article provides a deep discussion of the model and the steps one must take to estimate it. To enable extending a present model by adding data, two methods for estimating the positions of new individuals in the network are discussed. Then, a real data analysis is then provided as a case study on using the model and how to interpret the results. Finally, the model is compared and contrasted to other popular models in psychological and educational measurement: Item response theory (IRT) and network psychometric Ising model for binary data.

stat.AP↗

arXiv2018

A Doubly Latent Space Joint Model for Local Item and Person Dependence in the Analysis of Item Response Data

Item response theory (IRT) models explain an observed item response as a function of a respondent's latent trait and the item's property. IRT is one of the most widely utilized tools for item response analysis; however, local item and person independence, which is a critical assumption for IRT, is often violated in real testing situations. In this article, we propose a new type of analytical approach for item response data that does not require standard local independence assumptions. By adapting a latent space joint modeling approach, our proposed model can estimate pairwise distances to represent the item and person dependence structures, from which item and person clusters in latent spaces can be identified. We provide an empirical data analysis to illustrate an application of the proposed method. A simulation study was also provided to evaluate the performance of the proposed method in comparison to an existing method.

stat.AP↗