Week 3

Question 1

What is reliability

Answer 1

The degree to which a test tool provides consistent results

Question 2

what is Validity

Answer 2

the extent to which a test measures the construct it is intended to measure

Question 3

can tests be valid without being reliable?

Answer 3

No but they can be reliable without being valid.

Question 4

What is Classical test theory?

Answer 4

test/obtained scores are a combination of the true score of the test plus a level of error.

Question 5

what is more accurate large score large error or small score small error

Answer 5

small score small error

Question 6

Describe item selection as a source of error

Answer 6

sample of items chosen may not be equally reflective of every individual’s true score.

Question 7

Describe test administration as a source of error

Answer 7

general environmental conditions at time of adminsitartion e.g. temperature, lighting, noise; temporary “states” of test taker e.g. fatigue, anxiety, distraction influence validity.

Question 8

Describe test scoring as a source of error

Answer 8

Come about when performance on a test is subjective to the test administrator. Especially problematic when subjectively scored e.g. projective tests, essay tests. –> error is less when tests have set scales and scoring systems

Question 9

Describe systematic measurment error as a source of error

Answer 9

if, unknown to test developer, test consistently taps into something other than attribute being tested.

Question 10

Discuss Spearment to measure reliability

Answer 10

ranged from 0-1 scores closed to 1 a more reliable.

Question 11

What is Domain Sampling thoery

Answer 11

true score could only be found if people repsond to ALL items which represent the contruct. this is lengthy and not always possible. So, the domain sampling problem considers the problem of using only a sample of items to represent a constuct.

Question 12

What is Item reponse thoery approach to test development.

Answer 12

focus on individual items rather than test as whole.

Question 13

What is internal consistency? what does high internal consistency?

Answer 13

the extent to which a psycholigcial test is homogenous/ heterogenous.
(measuring one construct)

HIC = all items should correlate

Question 14

what is the stability over time issue for reliability?

Answer 14

The interpretation of individual score chnages when a test is administered on more than one occassion.

Question 15

Describe test retest (stability)

Answer 15

determines relaibility - same test administered to the same group at two different time points. if the test is relaible there scores from each time point should be highly correlated.

Question 16

when is test retest not appropriate to determine relaibility?

Answer 16

when the contructs is not stable, chnaging rapidly. emotion not good, IQ very good.

Question 17

How do you Maximise Test retest reliability?

Answer 17

use stable contruct, no intervention and short time between testing

Question 18

describe Parrallell/alternate for of reliability

what does high parrallel/alternate relaibility look like.

Answer 18

two forms of the same test developed with the same content and difficulty administered to the same group.
High reliability would be strong correllation between scores of the same test.

Question 19

Describe the Split half method of Reliability what is an advantage of this method.

Answer 19

test divided into two halfs and compared. there should be strong correltions between each half. if scores on two test are same then scores on half of once test should be same eliminates need to screate scond test to test relaibility

Question 20

does the split half over of underestimate relaibility? why?

why is it better than parrellel/alternate form relaibility testing?

Answer 20

underestimated because of smaller number of items used in correlation

it is better because it eliminates the need to create a second test to test relaibility

Question 21

What is the Spearmen Brown formula used for?

Answer 21

used to test reliability when each half of the test for test re test of not the same length.

Question 22

what is cronbachs aplha on which data is it used?

what is the range and redundency?

Answer 22

scores reliability for tests
used= on tests with graded score system (agree to disagree)

Range 0 (not similair) 1 (identical)
.7 adequate .8 good .9 redundant.

Question 23

when is Kuder Richardson 20 used

Answer 23

to determined reliability for tests with dichotomously scored items (0 or 1)

Question 24

what is Content Validity?

Answer 24

does the test adeqaulty represent all the possible items which measure the contruct. If a unit spend half the time on math and half on phsycs the test should reflect this in the final exam.

Question 25

what is Construct underrepresentation vs Construct irrelevant variance

Answer 25

underrepresentation = failure to caputrue important components of the construct
Irrelevent variance = measuring things other than the contsruct

Question 26

what is criterion related Validity?

Answer 26

the extent the measure is related to the outcome. e.g. the low self esteem predicts depression. good school grades predict high perfomance in uni.

Question 27

what makes a good criterion for testing criterion related validity

Answer 27

the criterion is reliable, and appropriate.
The criterion is not contiminated by the test - if the criterion and test have similair items the correlation will be airtificially inflated.

Question 28

What is Concurrent Validity

criterion related validity

Answer 28

the extent that the measure in questions corresponds with an outcome assessed at the same time. how does a clincial interveiwing gaugiung anxiety level compare with and anxiety measure? can be used to see how valid subjective tests are by comparing outcome to written test –> outcome should be same

Question 29

What is predicitve evidence?

criterion related validity

Answer 29

How well the test predicts performance on a criterion by comparing the measure in question with an outcome at a later time. (school predicts uni)

Question 30

what is contruct validty

Answer 30

establishes how well a test measures a psychological construct

Question 31

what is convergent evidence?

construct validity

Answer 31

refers to the degree that two constructs which should be theoretically related are related. (self esteem depression)

Question 32

what is discriminant/divegent evidence?

constuct validity

Answer 32

demonstrates that the test is unique. low correlations should be observed with consturcts that are unrelated to what the test is trying to measure..

Question 33

what is factor analysis

Construct validity

Answer 33

some items within a test moy be highly related and for a set. other may not be related and form a different set. multiple clusters or loadings indicate more then one construct