Upgrade to remove ads
Only $35.99/year

PSYCH 309 - FINAL EXAM

Terms in this set (79)

What are the advantages of using individual tests?
Individual Tests:
-One subject tested at a time.
-Examiner records responses
-Scoring requires considerable skill
-Examiner flexibility can help elicit max performance
Advantages: Provides info beyond the test score itself (allows examiner to observe behavior in a standardized setting.) This allows individual interpretation of test scores.
What are the advantages of using group tests?
Group Tests:
-Lots of subjects tested at once
-Subjects record own responses
-Scoring pretty simple & objective
-Little flexibility
Advantages: Cost-efficient, takes less time & skill to administer & score, more objective & reliable scoring procedures, broad application
What four things should one take in mind when using group tests?
-Use results with caution
-Be suspicious of low scores
-Consider wide discrepancies (among test scores or between a test score & other data) warning signs
-When in doubt, refer for individual testing
Compare and contrast achievement and aptitude tests.
-Achievement Tests measure how much you've learned or how much you've benefited from something (Psych 309 final, a course, training session, etc.)

-Aptitude tests measure your ability to benefit from future schooling, training, etc. or how well you're likely to do in a situation you haven't experienced yet. (GRE, pretest)
What is the Flynn effect?
IQ seems to rise with each successive generation. Therefore, IQ test scoring has to be reworked every few years to "reset" the mean to 100.
Have to re-norm
Increase of intelligence scores across generations
What is grade inflation? How does it affect current college admissions procedures?
Phenomenon of rising average college scores despite declining SAT scores
When professors give higher grades than students really deserve. It affects validity of grades, and this makes it hard for colleges to interpret grades, so they tend to rely more on standardized tests.
-affects current college admission process because it affects the validity of grades
-grades are no longer valid
What are the major weaknesses of the SAT and ACT?
- They don't do a great job at predicting college performance (account for about 17% of variance in college performance) in students in middle ranges
- Restrictive range (someone with a low SAT/ACT probably won't get into college)
- Poor predictive power in middle ranges
- Race and SES affect scores
What effect do coaching/preparation courses have on tests like the SAT or GRE? (What are the main problems)
- Rich people can afford more training, which kind of defeats the purpose of standardized testing.
- Test developers: research shows between 6 to 30 point increase with coaching and/or course
- Course developers: research shows between 60 and 140 point increase
What is stereotype threat? How does it apply to intelligence scores and college admissions?
When people are or feel themselves to be at risk to confirm a negative stereotype and it affects their test scores.
(ex. women are stereotypically bad math→ so going into a math test worried because as a woman you think you are bad at math)
Racial Ex: African Americans do worse when the test instructors indicate that their test scores will be compared to caucasians. Same with college admissions. Almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
How well do SAT and GRE scores predict undergraduate and graduate school performance, respectively.
- SAT predicts 17% of variance in college performance
- GRE predicts 4-6% of variance in grad school performance (specific nature of graduate fields and restricted range problem)
What is the best combination of predictors of undergraduate GPA?
-High school record (class rank & GPA) and SAT
(together, account for 30-37% of variance in undergrad GPA)
(.55-.61 Correlation with Class Rank + GPA predictors)
What is the Raven Progressive Matrices test? What is a major advantage of this test?
-One of the most popular nonverbal group ability tests
-Can be used for age 5+
-Major advantage= It minimizes effects of language & culture
What is the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and GPA/standardized test scores?
- Moderate to strong correlations between SAT scores and SES
- Richer people can afford pre-coaching, better schooling, etc.
- The lower your SES is, the more likely it is to affect your test scores
Personality
Stable (enduring) and distinctive patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving (poor long term reliability on personality tests because people change)
Characteristics
Non-intellective aspects of human behavior
Types
General descriptions of people (extroverted vs. introverted)
Traits
Enduring dispositions; tendencies to act, feel, or think in a certain manner in any given circumstance (long- term)
States
Emotional reactions that vary per situation (how you feel at that moment/ short-term)
Self-Concept
Person's self definition, instead of assumptions (relatively consistent)
What are the two major strategies for development of a personality test?
Deductive and Empirical
- Deductive: logical content and theoretical approach
- Empirical: criterion group and factor analysis method
What are the deductive strategies for structured personality-test construction?
Deductive- use reason and logic to determine the meaning of test responses.
- Logical content, also called the Content Approach, or Intuitive Approach, or Rational Approach
How? You deduce the kind of content that should measure the characteristic. E.g." I frequently eat between meals" logically helps you determine eating behavior
An advantage is that it has high face validity.
Example: Mooney problem checklist.
- Theoretical starts with theory, then deduces items. All items must be consistent with the theory. Often theorizes that items group together and uses item analysis in their statistical procedures. It attempts to create a homogenous scale. If it's done well, there will be higher content validity.
Example: Maslow's hierarchy of needs
What are the empirical strategies for structured personality-test construction?
Empirical- rely on data collection and statistical analyses to determine the meaning of a test response
- Criterion Group Strategy: choosing a criterion group (they all share the same characteristic (e.g. all schizophrenics) and then giving them all a test and comparing their answers to a control group who takes the test. -Then try to locate contrasting items between the two groups, then cross-validate the scale, then conduct additional research to find the meaning of results. Ex: MMPI
- Factor Analytic Strategy: Use factor analysis to empirically find the dimensions of personality (reducing data). This approach is difficult because when factors are loaded, there is subjectivity in naming the factors, and overlap. Ex: hostility and aggression overlap
Cross Validation
- Uses the regression equation to predict performance in a group of subjects other than the ones to which the equation was applied.
- Administering a test to a different group of people with the same diagnosis to see if the test discriminates between groups (know this)
What are some of the criticisms of the original MMPI?
- THE CONTROL GROUP WAS THE BIGGEST WEAKNESS
- The reference group was a poor sample.
- Problems with assuming face validity
- Elevation on multiple scales
- Tried pattern analysis, but it didn't really work.
What is the purpose of the MMPI and MMPI-II? What three types of scales are there?
Purpose of MMPI: help diagnose or assess major psychiatric disorders (only uses T/F) and distinguish normal from non-normal groups
Purpose of MMPI-II : update and expand the norms, revise items, broaden the item pool to extend construct range, develop an adolescent form
Types: validity scales (measure test taking attitude, honesty), clinical scales (identify psychological disorders), content scales (Items grouped empirically related to specific content areas)
What reading level is required for both the MMPI and MMPI-II?
MMPI - requires 6th grade
MMPI-II - requires 8th grade, cutoff is a score of 65 for the results to be clinically significant.
Know the three validity scales of the MMPI and what they measure.
L - (Lie) not recognizing the flaws that everyone has, trying to see yourself in a
favorable light or "Faking Good"
F - (Infrequency scale) was developed to detect deviant response pattern (malingering) - Ex. "I hear voices" → directly related to Schizophrenia, score high on all of the infrequent (abnormal) things that the normal population does not
K- (K-Scale) Evaluates denying problems that someone does have. Correction for
defensiveness
What is Code Typing on the MMPI? How has this been beneficial?
Code Typing- look at the highest two or three top scores on the scale to create a personality type, code, or profile
-helps you diagnose, purpose of the MMPI, able to create certain profiles
Is there much empirical research on the MMPI and MMPI-II?
- Psychometrics are good, 10,000 of studies on the MMPI and MMPI-II
- Yes! More than any other personality test.
What are the problems with factor analytic strategy?
- Subjective in nature
- Identifies sources of common variance but not necessarily unique variance
What kind of test-development strategy (or strategies) were used to develop the NEO-PI-R? What does NEO stand for?
Factor analytic and theoretical strategies
-N: Neuroticism
-E: Extroversion
-O: Openness
Name and understand the five personality dimensions on the NEO-PI-R.
Neuroticism: focused on self
Extroversion: focused on others
Openness: willing to try new things
Agreeableness: friendly/compassionate
Conscientiousness: efficient/organized
Define Stress
- Response to situations that involve demands, constraints, or opportunities
- Debilitating and interferes with every aspect of life
- Causes problems in specific situations
- Helps accomplish important goals
- Interferes with performance on mental and academic tests
What are the three components of psychological stress?
1. Frustration- attainment of a goal is blocked
2. Pressure- speed up activity, get everything done quickly
3. Conflict- choice between two or more important goals/things
Define Anxiety
An emotional state marked by worry, apprehension, and tension
Define clinical neuropsychology. How does it differ from other fields?
- The study of human behaviors, emotions, and thoughts and how they relate to the
brain, particularly damaged brain
- Differs due to specialization and focus on attention, memory, learning, language,
spatial integration, and cognitive flexibility
What are some jobs done by a clinical neuropsychologist?
Main three: private practice, hospitals, academia
What types of patients are clinical neuropsychologists most likely to see? What type of assessment are they most likely to complete?
- Assessing brain damage in clinical settings, diagnose, private practice, and academia; types of patients→ neurological rehab, disabled, dementia, after TBI
- Rehab, dementia, neurologic (more of neuroanatomy, involving the brain)
- Likely to complete: objective and comprehensive, cognitive behavioral. The test is diagnostic in purpose
What is a fixed battery? What is a flexible battery? What are some advantages and disadvantages of each battery?
Fixed - predetermined set of tests done in a set order for every single person
- Adv: allows for examination of same cognitive and behavioral functioning in each individual
- Disadv: rigid and can not adapt
Flexible - assessment is individually tailored for each patient (hypothesis testing)
- Adv. give tests to the specific problem at hand
What is the general order of presentation for a neuropsychological test battery? Why?
Built from least complex to most complex, if you can't do lower you often can't do higher
What are some problems with current neuropsychological tests of sensation and perception?
- They tend to be bedside neurological tests (TA said to know the phrase 'bedside')
- There are few standardized tests of sensation and perception.
- Bedside: Someone who is bedridden. In this context it means that the tests were less scientific and more used by everyday bedside nurses...
Be able to give examples of attention, memory, sensation and perception, motor skills, and executive functions. (things measured in neuropsychology)
Attention: sustained, selected, divided (digit span/spatial span, count from 1 to 20)
Memory: verbal memory and visuospatial memory (story of list learning tasks)
Sensation and Perception: visual fields, auditory, tactile (left side neglect)
Motor Skills: test of praxis (buttoning a shirt, stirring a drink, scissors, hammer)
Executive Functions: Initiation & self-awareness, planning, self regulation, decision making (interpreting proverbs, solving everyday problems, performing mental arithmetic)
Know the difference between working memory and long-term memory.
- Working: recollection of material immediately after presentation. It has limited capacity. Only held for a few minutes.
- Long term memory: stored for a long time. Capacity is quite large
What deficits are associated with the left or right hemisphere? (know the whole hemisphere specialization slide). Take neurobiology from Larson
- Left: word memory problems, right-left disorientation, finger agnosia, problems recognizing written words and language, problems performing calculations, problems getting dressed
- Right: visual spatial deficit, language remains intact, neglect, spatial calculations,
[Bolded=the most important ones to know]
Does IQ tell the whole story?
No
In general, know the major points of the Angela Duckworth talk on Grit.
- Knowing that it is not fun
- Grit is sustained passion and perseverance
- People with lower IQ have to work a lot harder to get going
- Grit predicts high levels of importance in other ways than IQ
What were the common traits of geniuses that formed Duckworth's grit scale?
Tendency to not abandon tasks for novelty's sake (mere changeability) or in the face of obstacles
What is the difference between self-control and grit?
Self-control is momentary and grit is over a long period of time!
- Ex. Self-control: I won't eat cake today. Grit: I won't eat cake for a year.
What is the relationship between IQ and grit?
Inverse Relationship (higher IQ, less grit)
What is deliberate practice? (There will be several questions on this so know it well)
- Requires a focus on things that you don't know how to do, designed to increase your current level of ability.
- Not enjoyable
- Practice specifically designed to improve the level of your performance
- Feedback is sought and applied, this is where mentoring comes in.
- So intense you can only do a few hours a day
Be able to give examples of deliberate practice and how it differs from other kinds of practice.
- Differs from other types of practice because it is not enjoyable
- 2 defined periods at a deep level (they take a nap in the middle of the day), average players work throughout the day at a low level
- At a difficulty level that challenges them but isn't too difficult to make them quit
What is the 10-year/10,000-hour rule?
How long it takes to become an expert with deliberate practice... There is no one that is a master that has done less than 10 years of consistent work.
What was the main finding of the Spelling Bee study?
Kids who did well spent their time to focus on an area of weakness
Be able to name some people who exemplify these principles.
Mozart, David O. McKay?
Summarize Rosenhan's experiment and Ronson's TED talk about Psychopathy.
-The first test when Rosenhan sent out people pretending that that had schizophrenia
because the said that they hear voices... when they got there they acted normal, but
they were still labeled as having schizophrenia
-Second experiment said they they were going to send "fake patients" but didn't actually send any. The hospitals identified a lot of "fake patients".
FIRST TIME WAY TOO SENSITIVE
SECOND TIME TOO SPECIFIC
TED Talk → faked being a psychopath so he didn't have to go to jail, he went to a
mental hospital instead of going to jail but no one believed him that he wasn't a psychopath.
overall : how good are we at assessing psychopathy?
How is measurement used for psychopathy and other diagnoses? Assuming that this could be a potential essay question...
- Prioritize sensitivity over specificity, don't want to miss anyone, smaller consequence for treating someone that doesn't actually have it then to not treat someone that does.
- How good are we really????
- We rely too much on the checklist that we use to measure
- We try to make things objective but they become subjective
- Want to identify people in a clinical setting
- Keep in mind (is this reliable and is this valid)
- Based off of medical model
How does sensitivity and specificity relate to these exact two studies?
1st: overly sensitive, not specific enough
2nd: overly specific, not sensitive enough
Overall: ability to identify disorders is not reliable
What is an operational definition? A hypothetical construct? How are these used in test development? How do items relate to hypothetical constructs? (Chapter 1)
Operational definition- defining a way to measure a construct
Hypothetical Construct- something that is not directly measurable, but which is inferred to exist and to produce measurable phenomena
Know how to differentiate between aptitude, achievement, and intelligence (Chapter 1).
Achievement - if you benefited from a course of study
Aptitude - are you likely to benefit from a future experience (SAT/ACT - who is likely to do well in college if given the opportunity)
Intelligence - general aptitude, your ability across wide range of circumstances
Be able to differentiate between the mean, median, and mode (Chapter 2).
Mean- the average score in a distribution and takes every score into account (great for interval or ratio level and for distributions that are reasonably normal distributed)
Median- the middle score or 50%, not affected by outliers
(great for distributions that have outliers and are significantly skewed, have ordinal level data, when the 50th percentile is particularly interesting
Mode- most frequently occurring score in the distribution, extreme scores
(most helpful for distributions of nominal data, useful with any level of measurement when it's interesting, may not represent the CT of skewed data or data with outliers.)
What components make up Classical Test Score Theory? (observed score = true score + error) (Chapter 4)
Each person has some true score that would be obtained if it weren't for error in measurement. We can't get rid of error so the score we do get is different than the true score.
- Assumes that error is random, uses the SD for each person as the basic error measure
In what ways can error impact the observed score? (Chapter 4)
It takes you farther away from your true score. Not reflective of what you want it to be, and left more to chance. (makes it less reliable)
Test reliability is usually estimated in one of what three ways? Know the major concepts in each way. (Chapter 4) - ESSAY QUESTION (know one really well) and what the advantages and disadvantages are.
Test Retest Reliability - Test them once, same test later. Checking to see if reliability is consistent across the two tests. Has to be a consistent/stable trait. Not a state. Easy, cheap.
Internal consistency - You examine how people perform on similar subsets from the same form. So you're examining whether the measure itself is consistently getting at what you want.
Parallel (alternate) forms - evaluating same test with different forms (the most expensive $$$), different content, but same stats and means
What is reliability? What does low/high reliability mean for measures? How can one address/improve low reliability (Chapter 4) ESSAY QUESTION
Reliability: the proportion of true to total observed score variance, consistency, stability, dependability of measurement (It refers to the accuracy, dependability, consistency, or repeatability of test results)
What low/high means: means that it is a good test and it is going to get the same
results every single time. If it has low reliability if you were to redo the test then
you would get different results.
How to Improve Low Reliability: Increase number of items, do an item analysis,
estimate the true correlation using the standard error of measure. Eliminate
questions that don't discriminate well or have a low difficulty index. Do a factor
analysis.
What is systematic error in a test called? Why is this negative? (Chapter 6)
Bias. It's bad because it messes up all of your data, your results will not be valid at all.
What is the relationship between reliability and validity (Chapter 5)
Something can be reliable and not valid, but something can't be valid if it's not also reliable
What is validity? What are the three main types of validity evidence? (Chapter 5)
The degree to which a test actually measures what it purports to measure
Construct-related
Criterion-related
Content-related
What pre-requisites exist for validity (Chapter 5)
Reliability is necessary (but NOT sufficient) for validity.
What is construct-related validity? Why is it the "mother of all validities"? What are the two types of evidence for construct-related validity? (Chapter 5)
-Construct-related validity: the degree in which a set of measurement operations measures a hypothesized construct (high fidelity)
-Mother of all validities: Construct
-Two types: Convergent and Discriminant

Convergent→ measures of the same construct narrow in on the same thing
Discriminant → a demonstration of uniqueness, discriminates, evidence that the test does not measure unrelated constructs
What is the validity coefficient? What is the meaning of a squared validity coefficient? (Chapter 5)
- Validity coefficient is a metric used to quantify criterion validity. Correlation between a test and a criterion. It's R (SAT is the test, the criterion is undergrad GPA, correlation)
- Validity coefficient squared: percentage of variation in the criterion we can expect to know in advance because of our knowledge of the test scores. Is a test doing what it's supposed to be measuring? Even if low, it's ok for big measure, like life and death situations. R squared. Variance accounted for in fluctuation (Percentage for predicting incoming freshman gpa based on their score of the SAT)
What is the relationship between test examiner race and intelligence scores? (Chapter 7)
When examiners are given more discretion about the use of the tests, there is a difference in scores between white examiners & African American children vs. white examiners & white children.
What are expectancy effects? What is another name for these effects? (several chapters)
- Rosenthal, or expectancy effects, are when data is affected by what an experimenter expects to find
- A review of many studies showed that expectancy effects exist in some but not all situations.
- Data can be affected by what an experimenter expects to find
What is the halo effect? Be able to identify examples of when the halo effect would apply (Chapter 8)
Ascribing attributes to someone on the basis of something other than the trait
I.e. you find someone trustworthy because they are attractive
What is social facilitation? Be prepared to identify examples (Chapter 8)
We tend to act like the models around us, it is very important in interviewing. Ex. if you project a mood then the interviewee responds in that same mood/kind
What is positive manifold? (Chapter 9)
Positive Manifold- all tests, no matter how diverse, measure g
What is g? Understand fluid vs. crystallized intelligence. (Chapter 9)
G- general intelligence
Crystalized- held in mind, solid, knowledge that is already learned. Vocab
Fluid- recently learned things, ability to learn new things. Block design
Understand the analysis and purpose of a factor analysis. (Very end of Chapter 3 in slides)
ESSAY QUESTION 20pts - look at lab slides ( learn how to explain in 4-6 paragraphs in a simple way so that anyone can understand it, don't be fluffy)
-data reduction technique is the purpose and using simple data to use it in other studies
-you have all this data that you want to reduce into groups so that you can ideally put it into factors.
-Studies interrelationships among a set of variables without reference to an external criterion. Reduces the data into different factors.
-it's a way to load my data into different domains
-real tests that have factors (NEO, MMPI)
-when you have factors that are significant then you look at the items that load onto the factors to see the correlations (how much the particular item relates to one factor)
-usually would like a strong correlation very well (items and factors)
-can also talk about our own projects to help clarify our explanation
Factor analysis: It does everything for you. The stats tell you which ones don't fit/what factors you have and which ones you could throw out. Interpretation is subjective.
"These questions are likely related and would hold together to form a PDA factor. So the factor is larger than the individual questions, it is a construct that is being measured by the questions."
Be able to define and differentiate between sensitivity, specificity, true positive, true negative, false positive, false negative. Be able to understand examples of each and when they are used. (Chapter 11)essay
Sensitivity: accuracy of the test in identifying delayed development
Finding True positive
Specificity: accuracy of the test in identifying individuals who are not delayed L
True negative
False positives: When the condition is negative but the test outcome is positive (Type I error) (associated with sensitivity)
True negatives: When the condition is negative and the test outcome is negative (associated with specificity)
False negatives: when the condition is positive but the test deems it negative (Type 2 error) (associated with specificity)

High sensitivity/low specificity: lots of false positives
Low sensitivity, High specificity: false negative
What is the discrepancy hypothesis? What does this do for psychometrics? (Chapter 11) may be essay. Think of reliability and validity here
Discrepancy Hypothesis: the difference between a child's potential to achieve and their actual school achievement. It's bad bc science doesn't support it. Terrible way to measure. There could be other factors going on that could contribute to the discrepancy, could be that you don't care, you're tired, problems at home, etc.
The discrepancy needs to be consistent for good reliability
I.e. Someone could test low not out of stupidity but out of lack of trying.
Ex. If you score well in english, and history... but then you are two SD below the mean in Math... technically you have a learning disability. Although, that is a problem because there are many more factors that go into testing a child's potential.

What it does for psychometrics? → doesn't have psychometrics, not reliable, not valid
Just because there is a discrepancy, doesn't mean there is a learning disability. There are many other factors (confounding variables) that can contribute to test scores that have nothing to do with learning ability.
Other sets by this creator