We develop a latent variable selection method for multidimensional item response theory models. The proposed method identifies latent traits probed by items of a multidimensional test. Its basic strategy is to impose an [Formula: see text] penalty term to the log-likelihood. The computation is carried out by the expectation-maximization algorithm combined with the coordinate descent algorithm. Simulation studies show that the resulting estimator provides an effective way in correctly identifying the latent structures. The method is applied to a real dataset involving the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire.
Keywords: BIC; expectation–maximization; latent variable selection; multidimensional item response theory model; regularization.