Seung Choi, PhD

Research Assistant Professor
Department of Medical Social Sciences
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
710 North Lakeshore Drive, 7th Floor
Chicago, IL 60611
T: 312-503-9803
F: 312-503-9800
s-choi@northwestern.edu
Curriculum vitae

My graduate training was in Educational Psychology/Quantitative Methods with an emphasis on statistical and psychometric modeling of educational and psychological constructs, such as aptitude, achievement, attitude, personality, and other cognitive and non-cognitive measurement variables. Since 1996, I have used item response theory (IRT) and computer adaptive testing (CAT) methodologies in practical settings to improve the design and analysis of survey and test instruments.

While my involvement in Patient-Reported Outcomes (PROs) research is relatively new (since 2006), I have been increasingly interested in psychometric modeling of PROs in a variety of health outcomes measurement settings. As a co-investigator for the NIH-sponsored project entitled “NIH PROMIS Statistical Coordinating Center” I served as the principal developer of the CAT engine currently being used. More recently, I have been leading an effort to develop multidimensional adaptive testing (MAT) algorithms that are suitable for measuring complex, multidimensional health outcomes constructs.

Selected Publications

Cella, D., Gershon, R., Lai, J.-S., & Choi, S. W. (2007). The future of outcomes measurement: Item banking, tailored short-forms, and computerized adaptive assessment. 16, 133-141, Quality of Life Research.

Hahn, E. A., Rao, D., Cella, D., & Choi, S. W. (2008). Comparability of interview- and self-administration of the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General (FACT-G) in English- and Spanish-speaking ambulatory cancer patients. Medical Care, 46, 423-431.

Kim, D.-I., Choi, S. W., Lee, G., & Um, K. R. (2008). A Comparison of the common-item and random-groups equating designs using empirical data. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 16, 83-92.

Cook, K.F., Choi, S. W., Crane, P.K., Deyo, R.A., Johnson, K.L., and Amtmann, D. (2008). Letting the CAT out of the Bag: Comparing Computer Adaptive Tests and an Eleven-Item Short Form of the Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire. Spine, 33, 1378-1383.

Rao, D., Debb, S., Blitz, D., Choi, S. W., Cella, D. (2008). Ethnic/Racial Differences in the Health Related Quality of Life of Cancer Patients. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 36(5), 488-496.

Debb, S. M., Blitz, D. L., & Choi, S. W. (2009). Quality of life differences in an African American and Caucasian sample of chronic illness patients: Assessment of differential item functioning. The New School Psychology Bulletin, 6(1), 33-42.

Choi, S. W. (2009). Computerized Adaptive Testing Simulation Program for Polytomous IRT Models. Applied Psychological Measurement. 33, 644-645.

Choi, S. W., & Swartz, J. R. (2009). Comparison of CAT Item Selection Criteria for Polytomous Items. Applied Psychological Measurement. 33, 419-440.

Yost, K. J., Webster, K., Baker, D. W., Choi, S. W., Bode, R. K., & Hahn, E. A. (2009). Bilingual health literacy assessment using the Talking Touchscreen / la Pantalla Parlanchina: Development and pilot testing. Patient Education and Counseling, 75, 295-301.

Hart, D. L., Werneke, M. W., George, S. Z., Matheson, J. W., Wang, Y.-C., Cook, K. F., Mioduski, J. E., & Choi, S. W. (2009). Screening for elevated levels of fear-avoidance beliefs of work or physical activities in patients receiving outpatient therapy. Physical Therapy, 89, 770-785.

Rao, D., Choi, S. W., Victorson, D., Bode, R., Peterman, A., Heinemann, A., Cella, D. (2009). Measuring stigma across neurological conditions: The development of the stigma scale for chronic illness (SSCI). Quality of Life Research. 18, 585-595.

Teresi, J.A., Ocepek-Welikson, K., Kleinman, M., Eimicke, J.P., Crane, P.K., Jones, R.N., Lai, J-S., Choi, S.W., Hays, R.D., Reeve, B.B., Reise, S.P., Pilkonis, P.A., Cella, D. (2009). Analysis of differential item functioning in the depression item bank from the Patient Reported Outcome Measurement Information System (PROMIS): An item response theory approach. Psychology Science Quarterly, 51 (2), 148-180.

Kushner, R., & Choi, S. W. (2010). Prevalence of Unhealthy Lifestyle Patterns among Overweight and Obese Adults. Obesity, 18, 1160-1167.

Choi, S. W., Reise, S. P., Pilkonis, P. A., Hays, R. D., & Cella, D. (2010). Efficiency of static and computer adaptive short forms compared to full length measures of depressive symptoms. Quality of Life Research. 19, 125-136.

Hahn, E. A., Du, H., Garcia, S. F., Choi, S. W., Lai, J. -S., Victorson, D., & Cella, D. (2010). Literacy-fair measurement of health-related quality of life will facilitate comparative effectiveness research in Spanish-speaking cancer outpatients. Medical Care, 48, S75-82.

Choi, S. W. (2010). PERSONz: Person Misfit Detection using the lz Statistic and Monte Carlo Simulations. Applied Psychological measurement. 34, 457–458.

Cook, K. F., Choi, S. W., Johnson, K. L., Amtmann, D. (2010). Developing brief fatigue short forms calibrated to a common mathematical metric: Is content-balancing important? Patient Related Outcome Measures. 1, 65-71.

Amtmann, D., Cook, K. F., Jensen, M. P., Chen, W.-H., Choi, S. W., Revicki, D., Cella, D., Rothrock, N., Keefe, F., & Callahan, L. (in press). Development of a PROMIS item bank to measure pain inference. Pain.

Ruo, B., Choi, S. W., Baker, D. W., Grady, K. L., Cella, D. (2010) Development and validation of a computer adaptive test for measuring dyspnea in heart failure. Journal of Cardiac Failure. 16, 659-668.

Cella, D., Riley, W., Stone, A. A., Rothrock, N., Reeve, B. B., Yount, S., Amtmann, D., Choi, S., Cook, K. F., DeVellis, R., DeWalt, D. A., Fries, J. F., Gershon, R., Hahn, E. A., Pilkonis, P., Revicki, D., Rose, M., Weinfurt, K., Hays, R. D., & PROMIS Cooperative Group. (in press). Initial item banks and first wave testing of the Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) network: 2005-2008. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology.

Choi, S. W., Victorson, D. E., Yount, S., Anton, S., & Cella, D. (2011). Development of a Conceptual Framework and Calibrated Item Banks to Measure Patient Reported Dyspnea Severity and Related Functional Limitations. Value in Health. 14, 291-306

Yount, S. E., Choi, S. W., Victorson, D., Ruo, B., Cella, D., Anton, S., & Hamilton, A. (2011). Brief, valid measures of dyspnea and related functional limitations in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Value in Health, 14, 307-315.

Choi, S. W., Grady, M., & Dodd, B. G. (in press). A new stopping rule for computerized adaptive testing. Educational and Psychological Measurement.

Cook, K. F., Bombardier, C. H., Alyssa, B. M., Choi, S. W., Kroenke, K., Fann, J. R. (2011). Do Somatic and Cognitive Symptoms of Traumatic Brain Injury Confound Depression Screening? Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. 92, 818-823.

Choi, S. W., Gibbons, L. E., Crane, P. K. (2011). lordif: An R Package for Detecting Differential Item Functioning Using Iterative Hybrid Ordinal Logistic Regression/Item Response Theory and Monte Carlo Simulations. Journal of Statistical Software, 39(8), 1-30. URL http://www.jstatsoft.org/v39/i08/

Choi, S. W., Podrabsky, T., & McKinney, N. (in press). Firestar-D: Computerized Adaptive Testing Simulation Program for Dichotomous Item Response Theory Models. Applied Psychological Measurement.

Pilkonis, P. A., Choi, S. W., Reise, S. P., Stover, A. M., Riley, W. T., & Cella, D. (in press). Item Banks for Measuring Emotional Distress from the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS): Depression, Anxiety, and Anger. Assessment.

Choi, S.W., & McCall, M. (2002). Linking bilingual mathematics assessments: A monolingual IRT Approach. In G. Tindal and T. Haladyna (Eds.), Large-Scale Assessment Programs for All Students: Validity, Technical Adequacy, and Implementation Issues. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Boyd, A. M., Dodd, B. G., & Choi, S. W. (2010). Polytomous Models in Computerized Adaptive Testing. In M. Nering & R. Ostini (Eds.), Handbook of Polytomous Item Response Theory Models: Development and Applications. New York, NY: Taylor and Francis.

Seung W. Choi, PhD