week one - intro to test and measurement

Question 1

definition of measurement

Answer 1

measurement is the act of identifying properties of an object

ex. carpenter would use a measuring tape to get the dimensions of a piece of wood

Question 2

measurement theory

Answer 2

field of statistics that describes and evaluates the quality of measurements

Question 3

examples of where we experience psychometric assessment

Answer 3

• testing in education to under stand student progress
• passing driving tests
• credit score testing

Question 4

psychometrics - common set of fundamental characteristics

Answer 4

1. they should all strive to be accurate
2. they should measure what they intend to measure
3. they should produce meaningful scores to make comparisons among individuals
4. free of bias against members of certain groups

Question 5

latent construct

Answer 5

seek to identify the properties of a psychological object

latent: can not observe it
construct - domain of behaviours

Question 6

working memory example

Answer 6

goal: to access the working memory of two students

working memory is LATENT

Selected Test: Ability to recall strings of digits
Interpretation of Results: More digits recalled = more
working memory

Question 7

individual vs groups tests

Answer 7

individual: given to one person at a time

group: given to a group of people simultaneously

Question 8

achievement tests

Answer 8

assess prior learning

• persons degree of learning, success or accomplishment in a subject or task

Question 9

aptitude tests

Answer 9

assess potential to learn

• capability for relatively specific task or skill

Question 10

intelligence tests

Answer 10

ability to solve problems and think abstractly

Question 11

personality test

Answer 11

measure traits, qualities, behaviours that determine person individuality

structured - accept or reject statements of ones self
(usually self report)

projective - reactions to ambitious stimuli are recorded and interpreted
(assumes responses reflect individual characteristics)

Question 12

behavioural procedures

Answer 12

describe and count the frequency of a behaviour, identifying the antecedents and consequences of the behaviour

Question 13

what is a test

Answer 13

technique to quantify a behaviour

composed of ITEMS

item: specific stimuli that produces a response
- usually require multiple items to properly assess the construct

Question 14

psychometrics

Answer 14

the science of evaluating characteristics of a psychological test

Question 15

criterion vs norm references tests

Answer 15

criterion referenced tests - decisions made in comparison to a cut off score

norm referenced tests - score is compared to some reference sample
- expected score from the population
- test taker needs to be part of reference population

Question 16

Sir Francis Galton (1883)

Answer 16

came up with the term PSYCHOMETRY/PSYCHOMETRICS
- father of psychometrics
- suggests there are differences between individuals
- arguably the first to have a large focus on mental diff. bw individuals
- believes anything is measurable

Question 17

Charles Darwin

Answer 17

describes individual differences in animals

Question 18

Edward Jenner - 4 stage hierarchy of human intellect

Answer 18

highest to lowest:

1.mental perfection
2. mediocrity
3 being
4. idiots

Question 19

who is the father of psychology as a science

Answer 19

Wundt
- creation of behaviour tests (ex. working memory)

Question 20

The binet-simon scale (1905)

Answer 20

• first intelligence test to create
• test compared mental age with chronological age
• renamed to the stanford binet intelligence scale

Question 21

army beta

Answer 21

specifically for those with little to no reading ability and used pictures and diagrams for assessing skills

Question 22

world war 1

Answer 22

the testing was successful
- achievement tests began to be created and implemented
- by 1920s testing was occurring in nearly all industries and work forces

Question 23

traits

Answer 23

relatively enduring dispositions that distinguish one person from another

Question 24

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Inventory (MMPI)

Answer 24

• factor analysis made rapid developments
• allowing creation and assesmenent of complex constructs

Question 25

factor analysis

Answer 25

allows the assessment of number of
dimensions (called factors) in a measure, identify a minimal set of items needed, and help confirm whether a measure
matches what we believe it is measuring (the factor
structure)

Question 26

inferential statistics

Answer 26

provide predictions about a population based on data from a sample of that population

Question 27

what are the 4 major variable types

Answer 27

ratio, interval, ordinal, nominal

Question 28

Ratio Data

Answer 28

• continuous
• can rank values
• zero is meaningful
• can describe differences between values

ex. personal income, age, time

Question 29

Interval Data

Answer 29

• continuous
• can rank values
• zero is NOT meaningful
• can only apply addition and subtraction

ex. Fahrenheit Temperature

Question 30

Discrete Data

Answer 30

• values cant be fractions, only whole numbers

ex. number of children, count data

Question 31

ordinal data

Answer 31

• categorical
• can rank/order the categories
• zero is NOT meaningful

ex. income categories, likert scales

Question 32

Nominal data

Answer 32

• categorical
• can not rank/order the categories
• zero is NOT meaningful

ex. ethnicity, martial status, province of residence

Question 33

Single-variable (Univariate) tables

Answer 33

left side indicates catgeories of the nominal or interval variable (rows)

types of info - frequency, percentage, count (collumns)

Question 34

Relative Frequency

Answer 34

Number of times that value occurs/ number of observations in the data set

ex. suppose we have 200 observations on x = number of prior arrests. if 70 of these x values are 1 then

x = 70

70/200 = 0.35 (35%)

Question 35

Mean

Answer 35

average from all the values in the sample

Question 36

Median

Answer 36

represents the exact middle point in the sample

• in psychometrics, most likely to use a mean instead of median

Question 37

Dispersion

Answer 37

variation among values

greater dispersion = greater range of scores = more possible differences could exist between scores

greater dispersion = central tendecy becomes less meaningful

Question 38

Range

Answer 38

= maximum value - minimum value

Question 39

Deviation

Answer 39

• measure of distance from the mean

Deviation = value - mean

Question 40

standard deviation

Answer 40

square root of the variance

Question 41

Variance

Answer 41

1. Find the mean of the given data set. Calculate the average of a given set of values.
2. Now subtract the mean from each value and square them.
3. Find the average of these squared values, that will result in variance.

Question 42

Percentiles

Answer 42

value where a specific percent of the remaining values will be less than it

• ex. if someone has an IQ test score in the top 5%, you can have evidence they are gifted

Question 43

Correlation

Answer 43

measure of the behaviour between two variables
- strictly a measure of behaviour

Question 44

Properties of Correlation

Answer 44

1.The value of r does not depend of which variable we
designate X or Y.
2.The value of r is independent of scale of X and Y
3.-1 <= r <= 1
4.r=1 if and only if all (xi,yi) pairs lie on a straight line
with positive slope. r=-1 in the case for a negative
slope

Question 45

Spearmen Rho

Answer 45

correlation coefficient for ordinal data, commonly used for psychological measurement

• can not use for categorical data