Cognitive Diagnosis Modeling Incorporating Response Times and Fixation Counts: Providing Comprehensive Feedback and Accurate Diagnosis

Respondents’ problem-solving behaviors comprise behaviors that represent complicated cognitive processes that are frequently systematically tied to one another. Biometric data, such as visual fixation counts (FCs), which are an important eye-tracking indicator, can be combined with other types of variables that reflect different aspects of problem-solving behavior to quantify variability in problem-solving behavior. To provide comprehensive feedback and accurate diagnosis when using such multimodal data, the present study proposes a multimodal joint cognitive diagnosis model that accounts for latent attributes, latent ability, processing speed, and visual engagement by simultaneously modeling response accuracy (RA), response times, and FCs. We used two simulation studies to test the feasibility of the proposed model. Findings mainly suggest that the parameters of the proposed model can be well recovered and that modeling FCs, in addition to RA and response times, could increase the comprehensiveness of feedback on problem-solving-related cognitive characteristics as well as the accuracy of knowledge structure diagnosis. An empirical example is used to demonstrate the applicability and benefits of the proposed model. We discuss the implications of our findings as they relate to research and practice.