Test Types & Formats
This test compares a test taker's score to the performance of a norm group rather than to a fixed standard.
What is a Norm-Referenced Test?
This method assesses reliability by administering the same test to the same group of examinees on two separate occasions and correlating the two sets of scores.
What is Test-Retest Reliability?
This measure of central tendency is the middle score in a distribution of scores arranged in ascending order.
Bonus: The other main measures of central tendency.
What is the Median?
Bonus: What are Mean and Mode?
A counselor gives an assessment to a group of clients. Most score very high, with just a few low outliers pulling the tail toward the left side of the distribution. This would best describe this type of distribution.
What is a Negatively Skewed Distribution?
This widely used career interest inventory organizes results around Holland's six RIASEC themes (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional) to help clients match interests to occupations.
What is the Strong Interest Inventory?
This test measures what a person has already learned or mastered.
What is an Achievement Test?
The extent to which a test measures the hypothetical trait is is intended to measure.
What is Construct Validity?
This term refers to a type of evaluation error in which a rater continuously uses only the middle range of a rating scale.
What is Central Tendency Bias?
A researcher should avoid using this measure of central tendency if she wants to use a measure that is not greatly impacted by test scores.
What is the Mean?
This individually administered intelligence test for adults yields a Full Scale IQ along with index scores for verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, and processing speed.
What is the WAIS (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale)?
This is administered to multiple test takers simultaneously; it is more efficient but has less observational data.
What is a Group Assessment?
The degree to which a study's results can be generalized to other people, settings, and conditions.
What is External Reliability?
The scores provided by most tests can be categorized as one of these three terms.
What are Norm-, Criterion-, and Self-Referenced Scores?
This method would be the most effective in a study evaluating the effectiveness of a particular treatment.
What is Experimental Research?
This projective personality test presents a series of ambiguous inkblots and asks the client to describe what they see, with responses scored for content, location, and determinants to reveal underlying personality dynamics.
What is the Rorschach Inkblot Test?
This assessment presents ambiguous stimuli (e.g., inkblots, incomplete sentences) to reveal underlying personality dynamics.
What is a Projective Assessment?
A new anxiety measure correlates strongly with an established, well-validated anxiety measure administered at the same time. This is the specific type of validity being demonstrated.
What is Concurrent Validity (a form of criterion-related validity)?
This measure of variability is calculated by taking the square root of the the variance.
What is the Standard Deviation?
This type of error occurs when a true null hypothesis is rejected. The probability of making this type of error is equal to alpha.
What is a Type 1 error?
This widely used, empirically based personality inventory uses true/false items and clinical scales (along with validity scales to detect response distortion) to assess psychopathology.
What is the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)?
This test measures whether a test taker has met a predetermined standard or mastered specific content.
What is a Criterion-Referenced Test?
A college admissions test is given to incoming students, and their scores are later compared to their first-year GPA to see how well the test forecasts academic performance. This is the specific type of validity being demonstrated.
What is Predictive Validity (a form of criterion-related validity)?
This term refers to the relative peakedness of a distribution.
What is Kurtosis?
A nonparametric inferential statistical test used when a study includes one or more variables and the data to be analyzed are reported in terms of frequencies in each category. Involves comparing observed frequencies to expected frequencies to determine if the two distributions of frequencies differ.
What is a Chi-Square Test?
A counselor wants a brief, widely used self-report measure to quantify the severity of a client's depressive symptoms over the past two weeks, primarily as a symptom-tracking tool rather than a diagnostic instrument. This is the most likely instrument used.
What is the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI)?