dscore 1.9.0

Overview

This is a major update of the dscore package featuring:

• a new default reference "preliminary_standards"
• a correction of an issue with the scaling factor
• a major clean-up of the itembank, references, keys, and R code
• improved documentation and examples

Major issues

BREAKING CHANGE: On May 31, 2024 we detected a long-time error in the calculation of the D-score resulting from an incorrect scale factor that led us to believe that item characteristic curves are steeper than the actually are. The impact of the error on the result is as follows:

1. There is no effect on the difficulty estimates of the Rasch models,
2. The D-score estimates are slightly altered but changes are small,
3. The references are largely unaffected and need not to be redone,
4. The estimates of the SEMs can differ substantially, so inferences based on the SEMs should be re-evaluated,
5. When there were changes in the analyses, the results in the newer method look smoother and are preferred.

The correction appeared in the development version dscore 1.8.8, and is now incorporated into release dscore 1.9.0. For backward compatibility to dscore 1.8.7 and earlier, use the argument algorithm = "1.8.7" in calls to the dscore() function.

BREAKING CHANGE: dscore_posterior() now returns a data.frame with column names that indicate the quadrature point. This was an unnamed matrix. Code that expects a matrix as the return of dscore_posterior() may need to be adapted.

NEW DEFAULT KEY: Adds a new reference "preliminary_standards" calculated from selected subsample of the GSED Phase 1 data, and makes these the default in this release. The reference is a temporary stand-in for a future norm-based standard for normal early child development. This reference replaces the temporary reference "phase1_healthy" that was introduced in dscore 1.8.7. Compared to the "phase1" reference, the "preliminary_standards" reference has the following differences: 1) D-score estimation uses the new model 20240601 with correct scale factor, 2) Calculates the D-score for SF and LF separately (not combined), 3) Tunes the GAMSLSS model to fit the healthy subsample. The "phase1_healthy" object is removed.

Major changes

• Adds a new age-conditional reference for population "dutch" calculated using the "gsed2212" key.
• Defines a new key "gsed2406" to accomodate for the changed prior mean because of the adoption of the new reference "preliminary_standards" as the base population. The key "gsed2406" is identical to "gsed2212", and is the default key in this release.
• Adds a new builtin_keys table that contains proper defaults for the base reference, transformation and quadrature points per key
• Indexed a reference now by two fields: key and population. Previously the index was based on only population. This change allows for multiple references per key, and for references created for the same population under different keys. The key field is now mandatory in the reference table.
• Adds a verbose option to dscore(), dscore_posterior(), get_age_equivalent(), get_reference(), get_tau(), daz() and zad() to print progress messages to the console on the values of key, population, transform, qp and algorithm. This is useful for debugging and for understanding the behavior of the functions.
• Cleans up the R code to take advantage of the specification made in the new builtin_keys table. This makes the code more readable and maintainable.
• Retires keys sf2206, lf2206, 294_0, gsed2206, gsed2208 and removes from the builtin_itembank.
• dscore() and dscore_posterior() can now copy variables from the input data into the output through the prepend argument. (#46)

Minor changes

• Simplifies the package DESCRIPTION file
• New internal init_key() and set_default_xxx() functions to regulate values for key, population, transform and qp arguments
• Renames the files in data-raw/data/keys to more consistent names, adapts data-raw/R/save_builtin_itembank.R to reflect model history, and rebuilds builtin_itembank
• Removes the dependency on tibble and tidyselect, and replaces the dependency on stringr by the lighter stringi
• Rename the argument name reference to reference_table in daz() and zad() to avoid confusion with the references argument in get_reference()
• Simplifies the spelling of the term "D-score" to improve consistency and readability
• Replaces magrittr pipe %>% by base pipe |>
• Make style more consistent with styler
• Per request from CRAN (Specified C++11: please drop specification unless essential), removes a C++11 specification
• Moves error evasion code into internal pBCT()
• Document up-rounding to a D-score of 1 or higher when daz() and zad() using the BCT transformation for positive values
• Removes the superfluous names attribute from the return value of daz() and zad()
• Evades an error produced by internal pBCT() when is.na(nu) is TRUE
• Renames GSED HH to GSED HF
• Change CITATION file to use the bibtex package
• Moved all keys to the data-raw/data/keys folder and renamed them to improve readability

dscore 1.8.0

Major changes

• Adds instrument gh1 (GSED-HH, JAN 2023) to builtin_itemtable and builtin_itembank as part of key gsed2212
• Adds example datasets: sample_sf, sample_lf and sample_hf
• Adds vignette to calculate D-scores and DAZ dedicated to GSED instruments
• Renames streams in gl1 instruments as: aa --> gm, bb --> lg, cc --> fm
• Replaces item name gl1aad001 --> gl1gmd001, and so on

Minor changes

• Rewrite calls to select() and pivot_longer() to conform to tidyselect 1.2.0 grammar

dscore 1.7.0

Major issue

• On 22021130, we found errors in the LF item order. This error was introduced on May 30, 2022 and invalidates keys gsed2206 and gsed2208, as well as analyses that rely on correct LF item labels. Version 1.7.0 corrects these problems.
• Item labels are taken from
  • LF1, corrected using original source file comparisons from
    Phase_1_master_data_dictionary_V1.0_29_11_2022.xlsx;
  • LF2, from
    GSED LF Item Guide_October22_FINAL_clean_27Nov22.docx and
    manually matched to LF1.
• Rerun core 293_0 model, check edits, redocument, regenerate
  diagnostic plots, etc. Check that result is identical.
• Refit full 818_6 model. In general better ICC's, effect on
  D-score calculation is minor, six items were bad matches

Major changes

• Introduces new default key gsed2212
• Introduces new instrument codes gs1 (GSED SF V1.0) and gl1 (GSED LF V1.0)
• Updates gto labels with correct order
• Set default key to gsed2212. This key repairs problems in gsed2206 and gsed2208.
• get_labels() now returns the labels in the same order as items
• Extends key gsed2212 with 18 ECDI items using Phase 1 validation data
• Updates builtin_itemtable and builtin_itembank with correct LF
  item order
• Redocuments upper anchor item

Minor changes

• Solves bug that crashed dscore::count_mu_phase1(t) when t is a
  vector containing NAs
• Adds example data set gsample with 10 cases with SF and LF scores
• Adds order argument to get_itemnames()
• Repairs an error in the sort_itemnames() example
• Replaces bitwise by more elegant elementwise comparison in dscore.cpp
• Removes the dependency on the sirt package

dscore 1.6.0

Major changes

• Solves a long-standing issue that led to severe incongruence
  between LF and SF at the earliest ages (<6M).
• Adds two new keys (gsed2208 and 293_0) using the Phase 1
  validation data for the GSED SF and GSED LF.
• Sets 293_0 as the GSED core model and extended it to include
  the 818 items that fitted the previous model ("gsed2206").
• Adds a new reference (named phase1), based on LF and SF data from
  cohorts GSED-BGD, GSED-PAK and GSED-TZA studies.
• **Changes the default key to gsed2208 and default population
  to "phase1".**. If you want the old behavior, specifykey =
  "gsed1912"orkey =
  "gsed2206"to functions that accept thekeyargument (dscore(),dscore_posterior(),get_age_equivalent(),get_tau()`).

Minor changes

• Many simplications and update to increase legibility and
  consistency.
• Makes arguments of get_age_equivalent() and get_tau() consistent
  with dscore()
• Adapts BCT functions to work with missing and out-of-range data
• Adds support for phase1 reference to get_reference()
• Adds support for BCT references in zad() and daz()
• Adds count_mean_phase1() for setting prior mean equal to the GSED
  Phase 1 reference
• Adds round 2 estimates to count_mean_phase1()
• Prepares dscore() prior_mean functionality to deal with the
  to-be-implemented new reference as "phase1"
• Adds count_mean_phase1() function
• Adds 18 ECDI items to keys gsed2206 and 294_0
• Initialise proper default population when key is 294_0.
• Adds experimental key 294_0 to the builtin_itembank.
• Adds a relevance argument to dscore() and dscore_posterior()
  to restrict calculation of D-scores to those items that have their
  tau within this relevance interval around the dynamic EAP
  estimate.
• Repairs bug in builtin_itembank that inherits old (gsed1912) tau's
  into new key (gsed2206) for instruments gto and gpa. As a
  consequence, D-score were incorrectly calculated when gto and
  gpa item names were used.
• Repairs a bug in get_age_equivalent() that resulted in age
  interval estimates that were too narrow on the D-score scale.

dscore 1.5.0

Major changes

• Adds three new keys (gsed2206, lf2206 and sf2206) that
  incorporate Phase 1 validation data for the GSED SF, GSED LF and
  BSID.
• Changes the default key to gsed2206. If you want the old
  behavior, specify key = "gsed1912" to functions that accept the
  key argument (dscore(), dscore_posterior(),
  get_age_equivalent(), get_tau()).
• Extends builtin_itemtable with names and labels for gpa (SF),
  gto (LF) and gsd (novel SF) items.
• Solves a long-standing issue #29 that gave different D-score under
  different transformation. This change affects solutions calculated
  with the metric = "logit" and transform parameters specified.
  The D-scores calculated under different transforms are now linear
  transformations of each other.

Minor changes

• Repairs a few problematic outbound URLs

dscore 1.4.0

Major changes

• Updates tau estimates for Mullen items in itembank covering a much wider age range: 65 out of the 85 Mullen items from previous itembank version have new tau estimates; 20 items are removed.
• Updates itembank with new Mullen items. There are 73 new Mullen items added to the new itembank. In total there are now 139 Mullen items in the itembank, estimates are based on PROVIDE and BAMBAM data.
• Moves sources to organisation repository D-score/dscore for increased visibility

Minor changes

• Update external links
• Repairs six incorrect BDS numbers in data-raw/data/bds)edited.csv

dscore 1.3.0

This release updates the item table, adds new functionality and solves some problems:

• Adds equate groups translated from the ddata package to builtin_itemtable
• Adds new itemtable_20200424.txt with minimal item definitions
• Adds 522 missing items that were defined in the ddata package
• Minimizes the data stored in builtin_itemtable
• The get_itemtable() function gets a new argument decompose for adding info from decomposed item names
• Solves warning from get_itemtable() when itemtable argument is specified

dscore 1.2.0

This release

• Addresses a problem with the integration of tibble 3.0.0.
• Adds a new facility to create a dynamic (on-the-fly) itemtable from specified item names in get_itemtable().

dscore 1.1.0

This release fixes a few glitches and improves consistency.

• The default rounding is now 2 (D-score), 3 (DAZ). Fixed rounding are now
  4 (age) and 4 (p) decimals.
• There was a slight discrepancy in the calculation of DAZ between the
  dscore and clopus packages. The dscore package now first rounds
  the D-score and then calculate DAZ.
• The dscore() function now automatically select the prior_mean = ".dutch"
  option when the user specifies key == "dutch". This change repair an error
  in the D-score calculation that occurs when only key == "dutch" was given.
• The dscore() function now silently handles warnings that may result
  from taking the log of negative ages.

On its way to CRAN!

Hi, welcome to dscore 1.0.0!

• The dscore package is available on CRAN per 2020/01/18 at https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=dscore
• For the development history, see https://github.com/stefvanbuuren/dscore
• Added a NEWS.md file to track changes to the package.