Question

Professor Rogers has created a test of self-esteem and reported that he obtained a validity coefficient of .85. Before concluding that this is a good test, the most important question to ask is: a. What are Rogers' academic credentials? b. How many items are on the test? c. Against what criterion was the test validated? d. What is the response format?

Answer 1

a. To develop any test and conduct an individual needs to have education in psychology including graduation,post-graduation as well as an mphil or PhD. Development of test and conducting it requires certification in psychometric assessment. Courses and training workshops on psychometric assessment are available.

b) A validity coefficient between 0 and 1.0 that indicates how well the performance measure, or criterion, is predicted by the test. The items on the test. could range from 10 to 100 or more than that.

c)The test could be validated against some other questionnaires serving as criterion administered to the subjects. For example, a personality type questionnaire could be used as a criterion to determine the criterion validity of the test.

d)Response format used could be a 5 point or 7 point rating scale ranging from "Strongly Agree" to "Strongly Disagree" for each statement. This is called a Likert scale response format which is the most common format used in self esteem or personality tests. Participants show their degree of agreement or disagreement on a symmetric agree-disagree scale for a series of statements.