Including empirical prior information in test administration

In this work, the issue of using prior information in test administration is taken into account. The focus is on the development of procedures to include background variables which are strongly related to the latent ability, adopting a Bayesian approach. Because the desirability of prior information for the ability estimation in item response modelling depends on the goals of the test, only some kinds of educational tests might profit of this approach. The procedures will be evaluated in an empirical context and some recommendations about the use of prior information will be given.