Lecture 5: psychological measurement

Question 1

reliability of psychological measures

Answer 1

• test - retest reliability
• internal consistency
• interrater reliability (The extent to which two or more individuals agree like having more than one Olympic judge)

Question 2

what is a psychological construct

Answer 2

• a characteristic of the mind
• initially based on an observation
• not just one feature but a set of characteristics

Question 3

objective measures

Answer 3

• counting events
• a physical measurement like time
• measurement error can occur

Question 4

subjective measruement

Answer 4

• rating of others or yourself
• prone to bias

Question 5

how to try and fix problems in measurement or observation

Answer 5

• replications
• relationship among multiple measures
• awareness of bias

Question 6

validity`

Answer 6

• a measure is valid if it measures what it is you think you’re measuring
• showing a clear relationship between the test and what it is meant to measure

Question 7

reliability

Answer 7

• consistence or stability of a measure of behaviours
• a reliable measure does not fluctuate
• looking at r (the slope of line of best fit) to determine if data is reliable

Question 8

internal consistency reliability

Answer 8

• measure of reliability at one point in time; deals with problems associated with test-retest reliability
• a measure based on the correlations between different items on the same test

Question 9

split-half reliability

Answer 9

• randomly divide tect into two halves
• compare halves

Question 10

Cronbach’s alpha

Answer 10

• correlate each item with every other item
• average correlations
• the most widely used measure of internal consistency
• measure of internal consistency

Question 11

Interrater reliability

Answer 11

• correlation between the observations of raters
• ratings should agree and resulting correlation should be high

Question 12

construct validity of measures

Answer 12

• does q measure actually measure the construct it claims to measure

Question 13

face validity

Answer 13

• plausibility of measure
• does the measure seem reasonable for measuring the construct
• face validity can be superficial: many good indicators of a construct are not obvious nor are all seemingly appropriate indicators of a construct always useful

Question 14

criterion-oriented validity

Answer 14

• scores on a measure are related of a criterion that is an indicator of the construct
• evaluates how accurately a test measures the outcome it was designed to measure

Question 15

what is a criterion

Answer 15

• a measure based on the theory that forms the bases of the construct
• ex IQ relates to high school grades
• IQ is the construct and high school grades is the criterion
• a principle by which something may be judged or decided

Question 16

predictive validity

Answer 16

• scores on a measure predict future behaviour
• criterion = future behaviour

Question 17

concurrent validity

Answer 17

• scores on the measure are correlated with another measure at the same time

Question 18

convergent validity

Answer 18

• compare measure with another measure that measures some construct; if correlated, good convergent validity

Question 19

underlying concept

Answer 19

• constructs can be associated with multiple operaitonal definitions

Question 20

discriminant validity

Answer 20

• compare measure with another measure that measures a completely different construct if uncorrelated, good discriminant validity
• comparing two completely different things to make sure they don’t correlate

Question 21

reactivity of measures

Answer 21

• a measure is reactive if awareness of being measures changes in individual’s behaviour
• measures of behaivour vary in terms of their potential reactivity
• nonreactive or unobtrusive measures