Variational Item Response Theory: Fast, Accurate, and Expressive

Item Response Theory is a ubiquitous algorithm used around the world to understand humans based on their responses to questions in fields as diverse as education, medicine and psychology. However, for medium to large datasets, contemporary solutions pose a tradeoff: either have bayesian, interpretable, accurate estimates or have fast computation. We introduce variational inference and deep generative models to Item Response Theory to offer the best of both worlds. The resulting algorithm is (a) orders of magnitude faster when inferring on the classical model, (b) naturally extends to more complicated input than binary correct/incorrect, and more expressive deep bayesian models of responses. Applying this method to five large-scale item response datasets from cognitive science and education, we find improvements in imputing missing data and better log likelihoods. The open-source algorithm is immediately usable.