Class Objectives

1. Class Objectives Review Boredom Proneness Data and generate conclusions Test Development Steps Rational, Empirical, Attitude Development Item Development Practice - Application of Erikson’s stages of development Discussion of Readings

3. How does one develop a test? 1. Identifying a need -- most critical part!!! 2. The role of theory 3. Practical choices 4. Pool of items

4. Test Construction, continued 5. Tryouts and refinement 6. Reliability and validity 7. Standardization and Norms 8. Further refinements.

5. Rational Scale Construction This is based on the assumption that the content of the test items directly reflects the characteristic or dimension we are Interested in measuring

6. Empirical Scale Construction Based on the differences in the responses of people postulated or found to vary on the dimension of interest, rather than on item content itself.

7. Attitude Scale Construction An attitude can be defined as one’s view of or reactions toward a given class of stimuli. The stimuli can vary widely and could include such things as attitudes toward political candidates, racial/ethnic groups, women’s roles in society, religion, gay lifestyles, etc. Often conceptualized in terms of an affective, cognitive, and behavioral component (Fiske)

8. Factor Analyses Factor analysis is the primary proving ground of psychological test construction. What a factor analysis does is tell you how many varieties of factors/components you have in a test, and then how closely those factors are related to each other… (To be reviewed in greater detail next week)

9. Let’s Practice!! Erikson’s Stages of Identity Development Trust vs. Mistrust Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt Initiative vs. Guilt Industry vs. Inferiority Identity vs. Role Confusion Intimacy vs. Isolation Generativity vs. Stagnation Integrity vs. Despair

10. Statistics Overview for Normative Data/Assessments Applications

11. Essentials of Normative Statistics What is needed to make meaning of someone’s score? Some type of interpretive or comparative information is necessary before any information is conveyed by scores.

12. Comparison of Test Scores: Tests interpreted 3 ways A) Comparison with scores obtained by other individuals B) Comparison with an absolute score C) Comparison with other scores by the same individual

13. Methods for comparing a raw score to other respondents RANK The simplest norm referenced statistic with interpretation based upon the size & composition of group

14. Methods, continued PERCENTILE RANK Percentile scores are expressed in terms of the percentage of persons in the comparison group who fall below them when the scores are placed in rank order. So percentile ranks are generally intended as a means of conveying information concerning a person’s relative rank in a group, but because of the nature of percentiles, they are generally not used in additional statistical computations…

15. Methods, continued GRADE EQUIVALENTS Grade equivalents are often used on educational achievement tests to interpret how a student is progressing in terms of grade level. Grade equivalent scores consist of a number representing a grade followed by a decimal representing the 10 months of the school year from September through June.

16. Methods, continued NORMS Standardized tests by nature are norm-referenced. Norms are established by administering the instrument to a standardization group and then referencing an individual’s score to the distribution of scores obtained in the standardization sample.