Principles of Test Construction How does the College Board assessyou?

Okay, first of all… Aptitude Tests Tests designed to predict a person’s future performance (aptitude is the capacity to learn) Achievement Tests Tests designed to assess what a person has learned

Believe it or not, AP, SATII, SATI, ACT, TOEFL are all… 1)Standardized 2)Reliable 3)Valid

Standardization Defining meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested “standardization group” Normal curve The symmetrical bell-shaped curve

Reliability Comparing your test scores to those of the standardizing group still won’t tell us much about you unless the test has reliability.Reliability The extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternative forms of the test, or on retesting.

Validity High reliability does not ensure a test’s validity.Validity The extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to

Other tests are evaluated in terms of how well they agree with some criterion—an independent measure of what the test aims to assess. For some tests, the criterion is future performance. For example, aptitude tests must have predictive validity, which means they predict future achievement.

Let’s reinforce! Quiz Time

Wow, it’s so easy. Psychological tests must be… 1) ___________________ 2) ___________________ 3) ___________________

Wow, it’s so easy. Psychological tests must be… 1) standardized 2) reliable 3) valid

Wow, it’s so easy. If you use an inaccurate tape measure to measure people’s heights, your height report would have a high_____________ but a low___________.

Wow, it’s so easy. If you use an inaccurate tape measure to measure people’s heights, your height report would have a high reliability (consistency) but a low validity (accuracy).

What do we call this?

A normal curve (or normal distribution)

Before we finish, Are general aptitude tests (SATs) as predictive as they are reliable? The answer is”NO”.