chap 4 text Flashcards
measurement is the assignment of scores to individuals so that the scores represent what?
some characteristic of the individuals
Psychological measurement can be achieved in a
wide variety of ways, including
self-report, behavioral, and physiological measures
are psychological constructs directly observable or not and why?
they are not directly observable because they represent behavioral tendencies or complex patterns of behavior and internal processes
An important goal of scientific research is to conceptually
define psychological constructs in ways that accurately describe them.
For any conceptual definition of a construct, there will be many
different operational definitions or ways of measuring it
The use of multiple operational definitions, or
converging operations, is a
common strategy in psychological research.
Variables can be measured at four different levels such as:
nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio—that communicate increasing amounts of QUANTITATIVE information.
The level of variable measurement affects the
kinds of statistics you can use and conclusions you can draw from your data
what are the 2 distinct criteria by which researchers evaluate their measures?
reliability and validity
reliability:
consistency across time (test retest reliability), across items (internal consistency), and across researchers (interrater reliability)
validity:
scores actually represent the variable they are intended to
validity is a judgment based on:
various types of evidence
validity evidence includes the:
measure’s reliability
measures reliability:
whether it covers the construct of interest and whether the scores it produces are correlated with other variables they are expected to be
do you often have the option of using an existing measure or creating a new measure?
yes and should make this decision based on the availability of existing measures and their adequacy for your purposes
