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MODULE 3 - Unit 1 - Steps in Test Construction

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MODULE 3 - Unit 1 - Steps in Test Construction

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junicelizyjames
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MODULE 3: TEST CONSTRUCTION

UNIT 1: STEPS OF TEST CONSTRUCTION

Definitions:

1. Psychological test: A Psychological test is a standardized measure of a sample of a

person’s behaviour that is used to measure the individual differences that exist among

people. Psychological tests are classified into several types, including intelligence

tests, aptitude tests, vocational tests, aptitude tests, and personality tests.

Psychological testing is primarily used for psychological diagnosis, job screening,

academic placements, identifying specific behaviour, research purposes, etc.

2. Construct: any complex psychological concept that often can’t be measured directly,

but can be assessed using a number of indicators or manifest variables.

3. Variable: A variable is something (a quality/quantity) that can be changed or altered,

such as a characteristic or value. It is the factor that gets measured. Variables are

generally used in psychology experiments to determine if changes to one thing result

in changes to another.

4. Test construction: refers to the science and art of planning, preparing, administering,

scoring, statistically analyzing & reporting the results of a test. It is a set of activities

involved in developing and evaluating a test of some psychological function.

Steps in Test Construction

1. Planning: making a blueprint of the entire test that is subjected to measure. It

involves:

a. Systematic formulation of a standardized test

b. Careful definition of objectives

c. Determining the type of content (e.g., short/long, etc.)

d. Instruction of the methods – sampling, design, preliminary & final administration


e. Fixing the length & time of completion of the test as well as number of questions

f. Detailed & precise instructions for administration & scoring. E.g., formulating

what is the construct, what are its needs, aim of the test, uniqueness of the test,

procedures, medium of instruction/language, determining the test-taker & users of

the test

2. Preparation of the test: it involves generation of the items by:

a. Choosing words having precise meanings – good vocabulary needed to avoid

confusions in writing the test.

b. Avoid complex/awkward word arrangements.

c. Put as much as questions as possible.

d. Use options of equal length & parallel phrasing (following same grammatical

pattern throughout).

e. Use “None of the Above” and “All of the Above” only rarely.

f. Minimize use of negative such as “not”.

g. Avoid use of non-functional words.

h. Submit items for editorial scrutiny.

i. Subjects must have in-depth knowledge on the subject.

j. Awareness on the aptitude & ability of the individual to be tested.

k. Avoid large & complex vocabulary & confusions in writing.

l. Assemble & arrange items in a proper, sequential & systematic order.

m. Detailed instruction of the objective, time limit of the test and scoring.

3. Preliminary Administration: after modification from experts, the test items can be

tried on an experimental basis to prune out any inadequacies or weakness of items. It

deals with administering the test to a large sample to evaluate the validity, reliability
& generalizability of the test. It highlights ambiguous items, irrelevant choices in

MCQs, items that are very difficult and repetitions. It is carried out in 3 major steps:

a. Preliminary try out: individual administration of the test to around 100 people

to check out & modify linguistic difficulty, vagueness & workability of items.

b. Proper try out: administered around 400 – 500 people. The aim is to remove

any poor/less significant items and choose good items. It has 3 major steps:

Item Analysis (process to judge the quality of an item) which include item

discrimination index, item difficulty index and item remainder correlation and

Factor Analysis (process to judge the quality of response set of each item) and

Post-item & post-factor analysis (framing of the final item by retaining the

good items which have a balanced level of difficulty & satisfying

discrimination).

c. Final-try out: the final test is again administered on a large sample in-order to

estimate the reliability & validity and to estimate the effectiveness.

4. Checking the reliability & validity of the test: Reliability refers to the extent to which

the results can be reproduced when the test is repeated under the same conditions.

Validity refers to the extent to which the results really measure what they are

supposed to measure.

5. Preparation of the norms of the final test: Norms refers to the average performance

score. It is prepared to meaningfully interpret the scores obtained on the test. E.g., age

norms, grade norms, etc.

6. Preparation of manual & reproduction of the test: reporting the psychometric

properties of the test and its references. It gives a detailed information & instructions

on the process of administration and scoring of the test.

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