Tests & Measurement for People Who (Think They) Hate Tests & Measurement


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Neil J. Salkind guides readers through the fundamentals of tests and measurement, using the conversational writing style and straightforward presentation techniques that have made his book Statistics for People Who (Think They) Hate Statistics an international bestseller. He provides an overview of the design of tests, the use of tests, and some of the basic social, political, and legal issues that the process of testing involves. The Second Edition includes more opportunities to practice, and end-of-chapter sections that apply the material to everyday concerns regarding the assessment of behavior.Tests & Measurement for People Who (Think They) Hate Tests & Measurement Review
This book is pretty basic and would be best for undergrads or masters students who have little or no background in statistics but need to know a little something about testing. Salkind's writing style is informal and inviting and thus reassuring for people who "Think they hate" the subject, but it thereby glosses over a lot of details. I teach doctoral level students but have taught this material to advanced undergraduates in the past. Spring 2008 I used it as an supplement to Allen & Yen and my own course notes. It turned out that the ones who I selected this book for (applied nontechnical types such as school psychologists) pretty much knew everything in this book already before starting the class, while the more technically savvy ones could infer it from the main text. For doctoral students, learning the psychometrics "for real" i.e., with equations and real data to work with, is essential. While they don't always like it, it's important if they are going to be building scales or using them in a critical way. (In my view, hiding all the details of a mathematical subject like test theory does the students no favors no matter what their level, but I understand the difference between student levels and demands of different programs.) There is a bit of classical test theory and classical item analysis and a lot of words about various item formats, ranging from constructed response, varieties of multiple choice, to interviews, some of which are quite sensible and others seem strange to me as a psychometrician, e.g., the author's preference for matching items, which must entail a substantial degree of local dependence and for which there is, to my knowledge, no straightforward model-based analysis. The presentation here is rather laundry-list and could benefit from being more systematic, but again, that might be too hard for the target audience. There is also some nice discussion about testing ethics and the like, much of which could be given to students by having them read the relevant APA/AERA standards documents, though of course at the cost of likely boredom on their part.Most of the consumer Reviews tell that the "Tests & Measurement for People Who (Think They) Hate Tests & Measurement" are high quality item. You can read each testimony from consumers to find out cons and pros from Tests & Measurement for People Who (Think They) Hate Tests & Measurement ...

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