Week 1

Question 1

Psychometric Theory

Answer 1

The measurement or quantification of psychological constructs through various instruments or psychological tests! It relates to instrument development

Question 2

Abnormal

Answer 2

Contextual analysis of something out of the social morals

Question 3

How do we measure psychological phenomenon?

Answer 3

Indirectly: because some phenomena are too prevalent to do directly an example of indirect would be certain scales used.

Question 4

Do we directly measure psychological phenomenon?

Answer 4

No directly only occurs in the medical field such as getting blood tests or Covid tests.

Question 5

What are the three reasons why psychologists are dependent on patients?

Answer 5

-dependent on patients to tell us their symptoms, be good historians
-tell us the truth
-patients need to be self-aware of their problems

Question 6

What happens to the accuracy when we depend on patients?

Answer 6

It goes down.

Question 7

Why do we want to understand test construction within psychometric theory?

Answer 7

Because you will inherently know the strengths and weaknesses and therefore it can be applied appropriately
Ex: knowing when a test gives a false positive or a false negative

Question 8

What is measurement?

Answer 8

Psychometric has two primary purposes for measurement 1. Scaling & 2. Classification

Question 9

Scaling

Answer 9

the process of transforming data values so that they fit within a specific range

Question 10

Why do we use a scale?

Answer 10

Comparing scales from one person to another, consolidating data! Allows us to standardize, it is objective it’s numerical

Question 11

Classification

Answer 11

Define whether the objects falls in the same or different categories with respect to a given attribute
Ex: grading scale 93%-100% A

Question 12

Why do you need to be careful with classification?

Answer 12

It is reductionistic, a person may be classified into a category that does not represent what they actually or truly know, they may be misclassified! Once you classify someone they stay with that diagnosis

Question 13

How do psychological theories become testable?

Answer 13

Operationally define the psychological construct & develop an instrument to measure the areas that define the construct

Question 14

What is the hallmark of good measurement?

Answer 14

That there is some form of standardization!

Question 15

Why do we use standardization?

Answer 15

To get the same results

Question 16

How is a measure able to be standardized?

Answer 16

Its rules are clear, it is practical to apply, it does not demand great skill of administrators, its results do not depend upon the specific administrator

Question 17

What is the hallmark of science?

Answer 17

The hallmark of science is replication to get the same results that is why we use standardization.

Question 18

Measurement of attributes

Answer 18

Attributes are a particular feature of an object! Do not measure objects but the attributes or properties of those objects

Question 19

What is the problem with with attributes?

Answer 19

We don’t always have common definitions of the attributes.

Question 20

Advantages of Standardized Measures

Answer 20

-Objectivity, Quantification, Communication & Economy
-these underlie most important aspect of science replication and generalization of scientific findings

Question 21

Objectivity

Answer 21

Any statement of fact by one scientist should be independently verifiable by other scientists (ex: Freud theory vs Behavioral theory)

Question 22

Quantification

Answer 22

Numerical details can be reported in greater detail than personal judgments & it permits the use of more powerful methods of understanding like mathematics

Question 23

Communication

Answer 23

Is facilitated because the language becomes more uniform (through others that work together it is easy to talk to one another) most disciplines do not use the same language but most speak science

Question 24

Economy

Answer 24

More economical of time and money than are subjective evaluations (it is faster to give number instead of wasting time)

Question 25

How do scientists develop measures?

Answer 25

By stating the rules to quantify attributes of real objects

Question 26

Inferential statistics

Answer 26

You take sample data and you make inferences about the population. This sample looks this way based on that population, we don’t use this in psychometric theory

Question 27

Descriptive statistics

Answer 27

Look at trends in the sample and understand them. Based on the sample itself

Question 28

What statistics do we use for psychometric theory?

Answer 28

We use descriptive & sampling content

Question 29

Sampling content

Answer 29

Looking at the items on a test

Question 30

Measurement scales

Answer 30

Nominal, ordinal, ratio, interval

Question 31

Nominal

Answer 31

Looking at categories
Ex: what is your favorite type of music?
-Nominal scales can only be coded for frequency data

Question 32

Ordinal

Answer 32

A set of object is ordered from “most” to “least” with respect to attribute (rank order) units have order, one does not know how much any of the objects possess of the attribute

Question 33

Ordinal

Answer 33

A set of object is ordered from “most” to “least” with respect to attribute (rank order) units have order, one does not know how much any of the objects possess of the attribute

Question 34

What is a limitation of Ordinal

Answer 34

Can lose a great deal of information

Question 35

Interval

Answer 35

Most used in psychology, rank ordering of an object is known, the distances among the attributes is known, the absolute magnitude of the attribute is not known, no absolute 0

Question 36

Ratio

Answer 36

We do not use these in psychology, because there is no true zero, is an interval scale with a rational or true zero

Question 37

Why are there very few ratio scales in psychology?

Answer 37

Since individuals do oftentimes possess some of the attribute we are measuring, there is never zero weight ex: weight, height