A Research Guide to Psychology by Dolan Deborah;

Author:Dolan, Deborah; [Dolan, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Unlimited Model
Published: 2018-05-28T00:00:00+00:00

4

Tests and Measures

Introduction

The area of tests and measures is probably one of the most problematic for beginning and experienced researchers, yet it is one of the most integral to both the science and practice of psychology. It is also the area that historically and currently strongly distinguishes psychology from the areas of medicine and social work. In addition, the acquisition of knowledge in psychology and other social sciences depends on, among other issues, the quality of the measures used to collect data. In virtually all of the materials examined for this section, the authors lament the use of poor measures used in research, due, they suspect, to the difficulty of finding substantial bodies of measures from which the researcher can then select, based on good reliabilities and validities in all of their variations.

Although the words “tests,” “assessments,” and “measurements” are often used interchangeably (as is done here), they actually are separate but related terms.

Psychological tests are formal instruments such as questionnaires or checklists, on which the testee’s scores are norm referenced—meaning they are evaluated against scores of those with a similar age, sex, diagnosis, etc.

Psychological assessments are broader and may include interviews, norm-referenced psychological tests, behavioral observation, and other means. In any case, they usually consist of several tests and measures.

A measure is a tool that places item(s), scores(s), verbalization(s), behavior(s), and other variables on one of four types of scales (nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio).

This section includes sources that cover all three terms. Four main types of sources in the area of tests and measures are covered in this chapter:

Resources providing information about and evaluating tests and measures

Resources about assessment using tests and measures

Resources containing tests and measures

Resources indexing tests and measures

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