EDPS 6300 Exam 2 Practice Items
Circle the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.
1. Evidence for validity should include what information about construct, criterion, and content validation? a. any form suffices b. two forms are necessary c. two forms are necessary plus information about face validity d. all three need be presented in unified form.
2. "Face validity" is a. the correlation between a test score and some poorly established criterion. b. the best evidence for validity. c. acceptable for research studies but not for tests used in clinical practice. d. not really a form of validity because it offers no evidence to support conclusions.
3. Which type of validity requires that test items provide an adequate representation of the conceptual domain they are designed to cover? a. face validity b. content validity c. predictive validity d. construct validity
4. Both convergent and discriminant evidence are essential for a. content validity. b. predictive validity. c. concurrent validity. d. construct validity.
5. A validity coefficient is a. the correlation between a test and the validity criterion. b. the squared correlation between the test and the validity criterion. c. the square root of the correlation between the test and the validity criterion. d. one minus the correlation between a test and the validity criterion.
6. Hypothetically, 9% of the variation of skill among dentists is accounted for by the test that they took in order to pass the dental board examination. What is the validity coefficient of the test? a. .03 b. .81 c. 3% d. .3
7. To develop a test with construct validity, what types of validity evidence are needed? a. face validity and predictive validity b. discriminant validity and predictive validity c. face validity and content validity d. discriminant validity and convergent validity
8. If a variable has a "restricted range", it is difficult to estimate a validity coefficient due to a lack of a. criterion validity. b. variability. c. adequate sample size. d. cross validation.

9. Dr. Tong is trying to define 'life satisfaction' and to create a test that will assess the level of a person's satisfaction with their life. She is planning to find out how well her test correlates with other tests believed to measure life satisfaction. This is an example of a. convergent evidence. b. divergent evidence. c. discriminant evidence. d. differential prediction.
10. Cronbach and other authors have argued that all types of validity are really categories of a. face validity. b. criterion validity. c. content validity. d. construct validity.
11. When evidence obtained in one situation is not found in other similar situations, the evidence lacks a. generalizability. b. criterion. c. predictor. d. inter-situation reliability.
12. The percent of cases in which a test accurately predicts success or failure is known as the a. rate of accuracy (RA). b. positive percentile. c. hit rate. d. base rate.
13. If an applicant is selected on the basis of test performance but fails on the job, the situation is described as a a. hit. b. false negative. c. false positive. d. high cutting score.
14. The percentage of applicants who are hired or admitted to a program is known as the a. base rate. b. reliability coefficient. c. selection ratio. d. validity coefficient.
15. The finding that intelligence scores have changed significantly over time lends support to the argument that a. intelligence is not completely determined by genetics. b. culture does not affect intelligence. c. nature is the most important determinant of IQ. d. socioeconomic status does not affect intelligence.
16. A test has adverse impact if it a. decreases an individual's self-esteem. b. systematically rejects higher proportions of minority than non-minority individuals. c. prevents non-minority applicants from being hired. d. is used by an untrained administrator.

Exhibit 19-1
17. Refer to Exhibit 19-1. In the above figure, a test score of 6 is associated with a criterion score of approximately ____ for Group A and ____ for Group B. a. 5; 9 b. 5; 5 c. 6; 6 d. 8; 6
18. Refer to Exhibit 19-1. The regression line for the combination of groups A and B in the above figure yields a predicted score of approximately ____ for a test score of 6. a. 4 b. 5.5 c. 7 d. 8.5
19. Refer to Exhibit 19-1. The combined regression line in the figure ____ predicts Group A and ____ predicts Group B. a. accurately; accurately b. accurately; under c. under; over d. over; under
20. The textbook takes the position that observed differences between minority and non-minority groups might be attributed to a. biased tests. b. biased test administrators and academicians. c. unequal access to adequate education and stimulating experiences. d. inherent differences between the groups.

Short Answer:
1. A multitrait-multimethod correlation matrix was computed in investigating the construct validity of a questionnaire designed to measure empathy. According to the questionnaire developer, empathic people are cooperative, tolerant, and nurturing. People low in empathy are independent, demanding, and dominant. The measures obtained in this validity study were of empathy, nurturance, and dominance. Two methods were used to assess each of these three traits: self-report questionnaire and peer-rating. The correlation matrix is shown below.
1 Empathy Self-Report
2 Nurturance Self-Report
3 Dominance Self-Report
4 Empathy Peer Rating
5 Nurturance Peer Rating
6 Dominance Peer-Rating
1
-
.6
-.4
.4
.2
-.1
2
-
-.4
.2
.4
-.1
3
-
-.1
-.1
.4
4
-
.6
-.4
5
-
-.4
6
-
(a) What does this pattern of correlations say about the validity of the empathy questionnaire for measuring the stated construct? In supporting your conclusion, be sure to talk about correlations in the matrix that represent monotrait-heteromethod and heterotrait-heteromethod validity estimates. (6 pts)
(b) Does method variance affect the measures and their correlations ? Explain. (4 pts)
(c ) How do you interpret the negative correlations? How do they relate to the expected pattern of convergent and discriminant validity estimates?
2. A selection test used for hiring was evaluated with respect to a relevant job performance criterion. The table below shows the frequency of four categories of examinees in a validity study (N=200) .
Successful Job Performance 50 90
Unsuccessful Job Performance 30
Below Test Cut
Score
30
Above Test Cut
Score a.
According to these data, is this selection test useful? Be sure to explain your answer in terms of the base rate and the success rate. (6 pts) b.
Explain your conclusion in relation to the effects of selection ratios and base rates. c.
Define the two types of classification errors shown in this table. What could you do to change the number of each type of error? (4 pts) d.
Calculate and interpret sensitivity and specificity.

EDPS 6300 Exam 2 Practice Items
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. ANS: D
2. ANS: D
3. ANS: B
4. ANS: D
5. ANS: A
6. ANS: D
7. ANS: D
8. ANS: B
9. ANS: A
10. ANS: D
11. ANS: A
12. ANS: C
13. ANS: C
14. ANS: C
15. ANS: A
16. ANS: B
17. ANS: A
18. ANS: C
19. ANS: D
20. ANS: C
SHORT ANSWER
1.
a.
The monotrait-heteromethod correlations are of modest size (only 16% of the variance in one measure of each construct is explained by the other), so convergent validity evidence is not very impressive. You would like to see these much larger, but we don’t know anything about reliability or range of variability in the sample, so its hard to be too definitive about the magnitude of convergent validity evidence. The monotrait-heteromethod correlations are consistently larger than the heterotrait-heteromethod correlations. This provides reasonable discriminant validity evidence. b.
The heterotrait-monomethod correlations are consistently larger than the heterotrait-heteromethod correlations.
This suggests that there is considerably method variance in the scores. c.
The negative correlations simply mean that dominance is inversely related to both empathy and nurturance (those high in dominance tend to be low in empathy and nurturance). These relationships were predicted.
2.
a.
The base rate is .70 [ (50+90)/200 ]. The success rate is .75 [ 90/120 ]. So, using the test does not improve your ability to identify success on the criterion much better than if you had no selection procedure. The test would not be very useful. b.
Because the base rate was not very close to .5 and the selection ratio was high (.6) rather than low, it is difficult for a test to be effective at categorizing people. c.
There are 50 false rejections and 30 false acceptances. You could lower the test cut score to decrease false rejections and increase false acceptances. d.
Sensitivity = 90/(90+50) = .64. Of the individuals who were successful according to the criterion, the test classified
64% correctly.
Specificity = 30/(30+30) = .50. Of the individuals who were unsuccessful according to the criterion, the test classified 50% correctly.