Week 4

Question 1

What is a psychological test?

Answer 1

A standardised measure of behaviour. Also called:
questionnaire
scale
test

Question 2

What do tests designed to measure ability or achievement look like?

Answer 2

These are tests designed to measure competence or capacity to perform a physical or mental act.

Example: an item (or question) from the WISC is “in what way are green and red alike?”

Question 3

What do tests designed to measure personality look like?

Answer 3

These are tests designed to measure how a person typically responds or behaves in various situations.

Example: an item (or question) from the MMPI is “decide whether the following statement is true or false as applied to you - my daily life is full of things that keep me interested.

Question 4

What is substantive validity?

Answer 4

conceptualisation: a precise description of the target construct (usually derived from the literature unless one doesn’t exist)

It describes what the construct is and what it is not

Also covers the item pool > an iterative process that should consider the

audience (reading level/colloquialisms/complexity)

response format (dichotomous/likert scale)

Question 5

What is structural validity?

Answer 5

Concerned with item selection and psychometric evaluation

• empirical/criterion based (selected because they discriminate between high/low of the characteristic being measured
• internal consistency > factor analysis > cronbach’s alpha > low correlations removed because they don’t relate to the score
• item response theory (method to determine whether items fit the underlying construct - uses an item characteristic curve (ICC))