The widespread utilization of multidimensional scales by researchers in field of marketing have motivated the conduction of a study to discuss the application of the Item Response Theory (IRT) as well as presenting a method that has proved very effective in the estimation of behavioral constructs. Therefore, this article presents a discussion about IRT highlighting its advances regarding the Classical Theory of Tests (CTT) and its traditional applications in the fields of psychometrics and educational evaluation. To verify its applicability in marketing studies, the IRT modeling was applied in a study involving a scale that has been widely used by researchers - Market Orientation (MkTor Scale) - proposed by Narver and Slater (1990). The results of the application demonstrated that even though the IRT model proposed can be satisfactorily applied in the Market Orientation context there are many challenges to be faced, such as the construction of a scale with practical interpretation, indicating the significance of having the level of maturity associated with a specific construct. The final consideration emphasizes that the great contribution of this article to marketing studies is the presentation of an alternative method to estimate the constructs in a more detailed way and to evaluate the quality of the items in the scale.
The Item Response Theory; Latent trait analysis; Measurement and scaling; Quantitative methods in marketing; Market orientation
