Changes in the Speed–Ability Relation Through Different Treatments of Rapid Guessing

As researchers in the social sciences, we are often interested in studying not directly observable constructs through assessments and questionnaires. But even in a well-designed and well-implemented study, rapid-guessing behavior may occur. Under rapid-guessing behavior, a task is skimmed shortly but not read and engaged with in-depth. Hence, a response given under rapid-guessing behavior does bias constructs and relations of interest. Bias also appears reasonable for latent speed estimates obtained under rapid-guessing behavior, as well as the identified relation between speed and ability. This bias seems especially problematic considering that the relation between speed and ability has been shown to be able to improve precision in ability estimation. For this reason, we investigate if and how responses and response times obtained under rapid-guessing behavior affect the identified speed–ability relation and the precision of ability estimates in a joint model of speed and ability. Therefore, the study presents an empirical application that highlights a specific methodological problem resulting from rapid-guessing behavior. Here, we could show that different (non-)treatments of rapid guessing can lead to different conclusions about the underlying speed–ability relation. Furthermore, different rapid-guessing treatments led to wildly different conclusions about gains in precision through joint modeling. The results show the importance of taking rapid guessing into account when the psychometric use of response times is of interest.