Comprehending Test Manuals

A Guide and Workbook

• Your students will get valuable practice in interpreting actual excerpts from published test manuals.

• Each of the 39 exercises begins with a guideline that helps students review the measurement concepts they will need in order to complete the exercise.

• Background notes on each exercise describe the purpose of the test from which the excerpt was drawn.

• Students answer questions that require them to locate and interpret important points in the excerpt.

• The excerpts are largely unabridged so that students practice interpreting material as it is actually presented by test makers.

• The skills they learn with this book can be easily transferred to other test manuals they may be using in the future.

• Students have an ethical responsibility to be thoroughly familiar with the technical characteristics of the tests they will use. This book prepares them for this responsibility.

• All major topics are covered, including:

· validity

· reliability

· standard error of measurement

· norm group composition

· derived scores

· scales to detect faking

· item analysis

· cultural bias

• The excerpts are drawn from tests such as:

· Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children

· Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test

· 16PF

· Stanford Binet Intelligence Scale

· MMPI

· Beck Depression Inventory

· Stanford Achievement Test Series

· KeyMath

· and many others!