PS420 Measurement Basics

Questions for Groups

1. What are descriptive statistics? How do they differ from inferential statistics?

2. What are measures of central tendency? How doe they relate to the issue of measurement?

3. What does the concept of standard deviation mean?

4. What is a normal distribution and how does it relate to measures of central tendency and standard deviation?

5. What are skewed distributions? How do they affect the issue of assessment? Give an example of measurement that might produce a skewed distribution.

6. How do z-scores relate to measures of central tendency and standard deviation? How do they fit into measurement issues?

7. What is the correlation coefficient? What does it tell us?

8. What are reliability and validity and how are they related to correlation?

9. What are the different ways of establishing reliability? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each?

10. What is the standard error of measurement? How does it relate to standard deviation?

11. What is a confidence interval? How does that relate to the standard error of measurement?

12. With reliability, standard error, and confidence interval taken into consideration, what is a true score?

13. What is test validity and what are the various ways of measuring it? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?

14. What is test validity versus validity of test use?

15. What does norm-referenced mean? How are norms determined?

16. What is a test protocol and why is it important?

17. What are basals and ceilings and how doe they fit into assessment?

18. What are raw scores and standard scores?

19. How are standard scores converted to typically reported scores (e.g., IQ)?

20. What are biases? What types are important in assessment?

21. What is high-stakes testing and what does one need to do to maximize reliability and validity under these conditions?