Test score reliability and validity are core concepts in the field of psychometrics and assessment. Both of them refer to the quality of a test, the scores it produces, and how we use those scores. Because test scores are often used for very important purposes with high stakes, it is of course paramount that the […]
NCCA accreditation is a stamp of approval on the quality of a certification program, governed by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA).™ This is part of the Institute for Credentialing Excellence™, the leader in the world of professional credentialing. NCCA accreditation tells your certificants – and all stakeholders in your profession, including customers/patients – […]
The Beuk Compromise or Beuk Adjustment is a method for a “reality check” on the results of a modified-Angoff standard setting study. It is well-known that experts will often overestimate examinee capabilities and choose a cutscore that is too high – in some cases, so high that even the experts themselves would fail the exam! […]
The adaptive SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) exam announced in January 2022 by the College Board to modernize the test and make it more widely availably, migrating the exam from paper-and-pencil to computerized delivery. Moreover, it would make the tests “adaptive.” But what does it mean to have an adaptive SAT? How does adaptive testing work, […]
One of the primary goals of psychometrics and assessment research is to ensure that tests, their scores, and interpretations of the scores, are reliable, valid, and fair. The concepts of reliability and validity are discussed quite often and are well-defined, but what do we mean when we say that a test is fair or unfair? […]
In the field of psychometric forensics, examinee collusion refers to cases where an examinee takes a test with some sort of external help in obtaining the correct answers. There are several possibilities: Low ability examinees copy off a high ability examinee (known as the Source); could be unbeknownst to the source. Examinees work together and […]
Positive manifold refers to the fact that scores on cognitive assessment tend to correlate very highly with each other, indicating a common latent dimension that is very strong. This latent dimension became known as g for general intelligence or general cognitive ability. This post discusses what the positive manifold is, but since there are MANY other […]
Certification, Certificate, and Licensure are terms that are used quite frequently to refer to credentialing examinations that someone has to pass to demonstrate skills in a certain profession or topic. They are quite similar, and often confused. This is exacerbated by even more similar terms in the field, such as accreditation, badge, and microcredentials. This […]
A test battery or assessment battery is a set multiple psychometrically-distinct exams delivered in one administration. In some cases, these are various tests that are cobbled together for related purposes, such as a psychologist testing a 8 year old child on their intelligence, anxiety, and autism spectrum. However, in many cases it is a single […]
The Test Response Function (TRF) in item response theory (IRT) is a mathematical function that describes the relationship between the latent trait that a test is measuring, which psychometricians call theta (θ), and the predicted raw score on the test in a traditional notion (percentage/proportion/number correct). An important concept from IRT, it provides a way […]
