Psychology 2025.  Psychometric Foundations of Assessment

And Psychology 1025.  Testing and Measurement

Spring 2006:  [Course numbers:  20368/20367]

Thursdays 2-5pm in 4125 Sennott Square

Description:  Empirical data collection requires that major concepts be carefully measured.  This course discusses the theory behind empirical measurement of psychological concepts and the creation of scales to measure variables. The course will offer the student practical experience in scale construction.  Each student will create a new scale and administer it and do a psychometric assessment of this scale.  We also briefly discuss the history of psychological testing and the use and interpretation of standardized scales

Prerequisites:  Knowledge of basic statistics including correlations and analysis of variance.

Course Requirements:

1. Regular class attendance and participation (30% of grade)
2. Design, administer, analyze and orally report on an exploratory study to develop items for assessing some concept.  (20% of grade)
3. Prepare a scale and determine an appropriate sample for initial validation and reliability assessment.    Present this plan to the class.  (10%)
4. Collect data on the new scale, analyze the data and prepare a short paper explaining what was done and the results.   (30%)

Textbooks:

Cohen, R.J., & Swerdlik, M. E.  (2005).  Psychological testing and assessment:  An introduction to tests and measurement.  (Sixth Edition).  Boston, MA:  McGraw Hill.  [CS]

Babbie E.  (2004).  The practice of social research.  (10th Edition).  Belmont, CA:  Wadsworth/Thompson Learning. [Optional]  [B]

Instructor:   Irene Frieze, Professor of Psychology and Business Administration.  3329 Sennott Square.   Contact at frieze@pitt.edu or 412-624-4336.

Tentative Schedule of Classes:

January 5.  Course overview and discussion of syllabus.   Methods of measuring psychological concepts.  Reasons for developing scales.  Where can one find scales?

• CS:  Chapter 1.  Psychological testing and assessment.

January 5 – 19.  History of psychological testing.  Legal and ethical issues in testing.

• CS.    Chapter 2.  Historical, cultural, and legal/ethical considerations.
• [Optional].  B:  Chapter 1.  Human inquiry and science. Chapter 3.  The ethics and politics of social research.

***January 12 – 19.  Review of existing scales.   Each student is asked to find an existing scale and bring copies to the class for discussion.

January 26 – February 2.  Methods of exploratory research to develop scale definitions.

• CS:  Chapter 4.  Of tests and testing.
• [Optional].  B:  Chapter 2.  Paradigms, theory, and social research.  Elements of social theory.   Chapter 4.  Research design.  Chapter 5. Conceptualization, operationalization, and measurement.  Chapter 10.  Qualitative field research.

***February 2 - 23.  Student presentations of exploratory investigations for their own scale concepts.

February 9 – 16.  Scale reliability.

• CS:  Chapter 5.  Reliability.

February 16 – 23.  Scale validation.

• CS:  Chapter 6.  Validity.

February 23 – March 30.  Development of a scale. Sampling and scale construction.

• CS:  Chapter 7.  Test development. 
• CS:  Chapter 11.   Personality assessment:  An overview.
• CS:  Chapter 12.  Personality assessment methods.
• CS:  Chapter 13.  Clinical and counseling assessment.
• CS:  Chapter 16.  Assessment, careers, and business.
• [Optional].  B:  Chapter 6.  Indexes, scales and typologies.  Chapter 7.  The logic of sampling.  Chapter 9.  Survey research.  Chapter 12.  Evaluation research.

***March 2 - 16.   Student presentations of scale drafts and plans for assessment of their scale.

March 30 – April 13.   Analysis of scale data.

• [Optional].  B:  Chapter 14  Quantitative data analysis.  Chapter 15.  The elaboration model.  Chapter 16.  Social statistics.

***April 6 – 27.  Student presentations of scale data.

• [Optional].  B:  Chapter  17.  Reading and writing social research.

***April 27.  Final paper due.