Testing and Measurement

Since I was a small child, I have always been a nurturer, someone who helps others. I patiently listen to their concerns, let them express their feelings, and, when appropriate, help them look at ways to feel better or behave differently. In its simplest form, I think of mentoring as a process of nurturing others. For me, it is using who I am and what I know to foster the personal and professional growth of graduate students. This is what I find most fulfilling about being a professor-the opportunity to develop meaningful individual relationships with my students with the primary goal being their academic and career success and fulfillment. As I reflected on my almost 29-year tenure as a faculty member at Arizona State University, I realized that I have had the privilege of fostering the development of 50 doctoral graduates, as well as numerous master degree graduates. Currently, I am directing the dissertations of nine students. The students who enter our doctoral program in counseling psychology are amazing. They are unbelievably bright, articulate, and curious, and invariably kind-hearted. To be able to work with them is a privilege. I have never viewed being a teacher and mentor as a task or as "a job." Instead, I believe that these students have been gifts to me. As I have tried to enrich their lives and careers, they have enriched mine both personally and professionally. Mentoring is a reciprocal process, occurring in stages. Dr. Mary E. Stafford is a faculty member and internship coordinator in the School Psychology Program at University of Houston Clear Lake, where she is an Associate Professor. Dr. Stafford is editor of the International School Psychology Association's (ISPA) newsletter, the World*Go*Round. She teaches courses in personality assessment, child psychopathology, counseling children, and biological basis of behavior. Her research interests focus on at-risk children (especially, on influences on resilience among youth, on the effects of mobility among school-age children, and on socioeconomic, cultural, and language issues related to children's achievement and adjustment in schools), on practice issues in schools internationally, and on ethics. Dr. Stafford has a Ph.D. degree in Educational Psychology, with concentration in School Psychology, from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to coming to UHCL in 2005, she was the Training Director in the School Psychology Program in the Division of Psychology in Education at Arizona State University. In her early career, she worked with children in public school and residential treatment center for emotionally handicapped settings as teacher, counselor, diagnostician, and school principal.

List of Figures List of Tables A Note to Students Acknowledgments 1. What Is a Number? Is a Rose Always a Rose? Numbers and Scales Some Final Thoughts About Scales of Measurement Numbers and Response Formats Some Final Thoughts About Response Formats Numbers and Test Scores--How Do They Relate? Some Final Thoughts About Measurement Scales and Response Formats Key Terms Models and Self-instructional Exercises Words of Encouragement 2. Frequencies: One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato, Four Ungrouped Frequency Distributions Grouped Frequency Distributions Cumulative Frequency Distribution Some Final Thoughts About Frequency Distributions Key Terms Models and Self-instructional Exercises Words of Encouragement 3. The Distribution of Test Scores--The Perfect Body? Kurtosis Skewness Some Final Thoughts About Distribution of Test Scores Key Terms Models and Self-instructional Exercises Words of Encouragement 4. Central Tendencies and Dispersion--Coming Together or Growing Apart Central Tendencies--The Inner Core of the Normal Curve The Mode The Median Medians and Modes for Grouped Frequency Data The Mean Some Final Points About Central Tendency Dispersion--Not All Bodies Are the Same Range Deviation Scores Variance Standard Deviation Means and Standard Deviations in the Real World Key Terms Models and Self-instructional Exercises Your New Best Friend--SPSS Words of Encouragement 5. Standardized Scores--Do You Measure Up? Percentiles--What They Mean in Measurement Percentile Ranks for Grouped Data Some Final Thoughts About Percentile Ranks Z Scores Why Transform a Raw Score to a Z Score? Other Standard Scores Key Terms Models and Self-instructional Exercises Your New Best Friend-SPSS Words of Encouragement 6. Norms and Criterion Scores--Keeping Up With the Joneses or Not Criterion-Referenced Tests--Do You Know as Much as You Should? Norm-Referenced Tests--Dying to Fit In Key Terms Models and Self-instructional Exercises Words of Encouragement 7. Error Scores--The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth? Test Theory Test-Theory Assumptions Key Terms Models and Self-instructional Exercises Words of Encouragement 8. Building a Strong Test--One the Big Bad Wolf Can't Blow Down Item Difficulty Some Final Thoughts About Item Difficulty Item Discrimination Key Terms Models and Self-instructional Exercises Words of Encouragement 9. Reliability--The Same Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow The Mathematical Foundation of Reliability Types of Reliability Estimates Standard Error of Measurement Correlation Coefficients as Measures of Reliability Some Final Thoughts About Reliability Key Terms Models and Self-instructional Exercises Words of Encouragement 10. Validity--What You See Is Not Always What You Get Helping You Get What You See Sources of Validity Evidence The Marriage of Reliability and Validity--Wedded Bliss Interpreting the Validity of Tests--Intended and Unintended Consequences Some Final Thoughts About Validity Key Terms Models and Self-instructional Exercises Words of Encouragement 11. The Perils and Pitfalls of Testing--Being Ethical Your Own Competence Rights of Those Being Tested Potential Dangers Ryan's Rights Appendix References Index About the Authors