Response data from 3,000 subjects to the SRA Attitude Survey (SRA, 1974) were analyzed using the one-parameter and two-parameter logistic latent trait models. The effects of varying sample size on the accuracy of estimating of person and item parameters were investigated. For both models, ability parameter estimates for all sample sizes (N = 1,000, 500, and 250) were nearly perfectly correlated with population ability parameters. For the item difficulty parameters, a sample of 250 subjects was found to be adequate for estimation in the one-parameter model; 500 subjects were found to be adequate for estimation in the two-parameter model. For item discrimination indices in the two-parameter model, samples of 1000 subjects were required for accurate estimation. These empirical results appear to support the Monte Carlo results from previous investigations dealing with the estimation of item and person parameters.
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