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Psychological Testing. Characteristics of Psychological Tests. Why Test?. These tests try to make it possible to find out a great deal about a person in a short amount of time What “movie” were you?. Mr. Maida. Test Reliability. Reliability - this refers to a tests consistency
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Psychological Testing Characteristics of Psychological Tests
Why Test? • These tests try to make it possible to find out a great deal about a person in a short amount of time • What “movie” were you? Mr. Maida
Test Reliability • Reliability - this refers to a tests consistency • Three ways to determine reliability • If you retake the same or a similar test a short time after taking the initial test, do you score about the same? • Does the test get the same results when scored at different times by different people? • Split-half – dividing test into two equal parts. Scores should be about the same
Test Validity • Validity – the ability of a test to measure what it is intended to measure • Does LeSage’s ability to kick a ball through the uprights measure his grammar ability? • Please say no • Measuring validity is more difficult than reliability • One method is to find out predictive validity (how well a test predicts performance) • Is a “Keystone Exam” a valid measure of content knowledge?
Test Standardization • Standardization refers to two things: • Must be administered and scored the same way every time • Ever wonder why the SAT proctor reads from a script? • Must establish the “norm,” or average score made by a large group of people
Establishing Norms • Translating the score into something useful: • If a you scored a 15 out of 25 on our first quiz what does that mean? • Where do you stand in relation to the other students in the class? • If most answered only 10 questions correctly that means that 10 correct is a very high score, right? • Percentile System: Scores actually achieved are placed in order (you know this as the curve) • Tests must be given to a large groups • These percentiles are considered the “norms”