IMPLICATIONS OF CRITERION‐REFERENCED MEASUREMENTPOPHAM, W. JAMES; HUSEK, T. R.
doi: 10.1111/j.1745-3984.1969.tb00654.xpmid: N/A
During the past several years measurement and instructional specialists have distinguished between norm‐referenced and criterion‐referenced approaches to measurement. More traditional, a norm‐referenced measure is used to identify an individual's performance in relation to the performance of others on the same measure. A criterion‐referenced test is used to identify an individual's status with respect to an established standard of performance. This discussion examines the implications of these two approaches to measurement, particularly criterion‐referenced measurement, with respect to variability, item construction, reliability, validity, item analysis, reporting, and interpretation.
A NEW LOGICAL SCORING KEY FOR THE MINNESOTA TEACHER ATTITUDE INVENTORYYEE, ALBERT H.; KRIEWALL, THOMAS
doi: 10.1111/j.1745-3984.1969.tb00655.xpmid: N/A
This study tested three scoring keys for the MTAI—the published empirical key (E); a logical key with three different weights, i.e., + 1, 0, ‐1; and a new logical key with five different scoring weights, one for each of the five responses in MTAI items, i.e., +2, +1, 0, ‐1, ‐2. The latter, termed the pentachotomous‐logical (P‐L), provided scores with slightly higher internal consistency and a frequency distribution which is not so significantly skewed as the others and which provides greater spread among extreme positive and negative scores. Use of the P‐L scoring weights would facilitate the psychological interpretation of the MTAI. However, conclusion that the P‐L scoring key is an improvement must be tempered by the fact that an expected increase in construct validity was not found.
A CROSS‐VALIDATION STUDY OF THE ITEM ORDERING OF THE PEABODY PICTURE VOCABULARY TESTRENZULLI, JOSEPH S.; PAULUS, DIETER H.
doi: 10.1111/j.1745-3984.1969.tb00656.xpmid: N/A
A subset of the items of both forms of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) was administered to a sample of 452 fourth‐, fifth‐ and sixth‐grade students. This sample of students was randomly divided into two equal subgroups. Item difficulty indices were calculated for each of the two subsamples for each of the two forms of the test. Data obtained from the first subsample were used to evaluate the published ordering of items of Forms A and B of the PPVT and to reorder the items according to the empirically derived item difficulties. The second subsample was used as a cross‐validation sample to evaluate the empirically derived reordering of items. The results of the cross‐validation of the reordering indicate a substantial and significant increase in the validity of the item orderings for this subset of items on both forms of the PPVT. Therefore, this new ordering may yield a more accurate estimate of the intelligence of average and above students in the fourth‐, fifth‐, and sixth‐grades than the present, published ordering of items.
SEX DIFFERENCES IN THE TAYLOR MANIFEST ANXIETY SCALEQUARTER, JACK J.; LAXER, ROBERT M.
doi: 10.1111/j.1745-3984.1969.tb00657.xpmid: N/A
A study comparing the performance of males and females on the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale extended the previous findings of a differential response pattern for males and females to a Canadian high school population. An item analysis identified 12 of the 50 items as being responsible for the higher female scores. The scores for Canadian high school students in this study were found to fall midway between those of university students and those of psychiatric patients tested in previous studies.
A NOTE ON THE STABILITY OF THE IOWA TESTS OF BASIC SKILLSLINN, ROBERT L.
doi: 10.1111/j.1745-3984.1969.tb00659.xpmid: N/A
The seventh‐grade standard deviations on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) and the intercorrelations among the tests reported by Merenda and Jackson (Journal of Educational Measurement, 1968, 5, 163–165) seemed unusual enough for their accuracy to be questioned. Corresponding statistics possessing markedly different values are presented for another sample. Contrary to the findings of Merenda and Jackson, the present data indicate a high degree of stability for the ITBS for a 3‐year interval.