L’Item Response Theory come strumento di valutazione delle eccellenze nella scuola

According to the modern human capital theory, the learning process is assuming a central role for a country development. Therefore, it is very important to encourage an active and conscious learning. This paper shows the case of the National Olympic of Statistics, that is an initiative to improve statistic reasoning in the Second Grade Middle School. In particular, it has been analyzed, through Item Response Theory models, only one of the competition questionnaires. The aim of this work is to provide a critical review of the questionnaire and to highlight the importance of using statistical methods in evaluation processes.