A Sound Basis for the Theory of Statistical Inference Measuring Statistical Evidence Using Relative Belief provides an overview of recent work on developing a theory of statistical inference based on measuring statistical evidence. It shows that being explicit about how to measure statistical evidence allows you to answer the basic question of when a statistical analysis is correct. The book attempts to establish a gold standard for how a statistical analysis should proceed. It first introduces basic features of the overall approach, such as the roles of subjectivity, objectivity, infinity, and utility in statistical analyses. It next discusses the meaning of probability and the various positions taken on probability. The author then focuses on the definition of statistical evidence and how it should be measured. He presents a method for measuring statistical evidence and develops a theory of inference based on this method. He also discusses how statisticians should choose the ingredients for a statistical problem and how these choices are to be checked for their relevance in an application.

Item response theory (IRT) is widely used in education and psychology and is expanding its applications to other social science areas, medical research, and business as well. Using R for Item Response Theory Model Applications is a practical guide for students, instructors, practitioners, and applied researchers who want to learn how to properly use R IRT packages to perform IRT model calibrations with their own data. This book provides practical line-by-line descriptions of how to use R IRT packages for various IRT models. The scope and coverage of the modeling in the book covers almost all models used in practice and in popular research, including: dichotomous response modeling polytomous response modeling mixed format data modeling concurrent multiple group modeling fixed item parameter calibration modelling with latent regression to include person-level covariate(s) simple structure, or between-item, multidimensional modeling cross-loading, or within-item, multidimensional modeling high-dimensional modeling bifactor modeling testlet modeling two-tier modeling For beginners, this book provides a straightforward guide to learn how to use R for IRT applications. For more intermediate learners of IRT or users of R, this book will serve as a great time-saving tool for learning how to create the proper syntax, fit the various models, evaluate the models, and interpret the output using popular R IRT packages.

Originally published in 1983 and written in the tradition of the British School of Psychology, Spearman, Burt, Eysenck, Cattell, this book from a well-known author was exceptional at the time in its attempt to wed quantification and psychological theory in the study of personality. The student is presented with a discussion of the different methods of measuring personality and the various findings which have been made. The results are then discussed in the light of psychological theories of personality and here the author stresses the need for a theory with a properly quantified bias. However, the emphasis on findings from measurement and not the measurement itself makes the book psychological, truly about personality and not simply another text on psychological measurement.

Winner of the 2015 Sugiyama Meiko Award (Publication Award) of the Behaviormetric Society of Japan Developed by the authors, generalized structured component analysis is an alternative to two longstanding approaches to structural equation modeling: covariance structure analysis and partial least squares path modeling. Generalized structured component analysis allows researchers to evaluate the adequacy of a model as a whole, compare a model to alternative specifications, and conduct complex analyses in a straightforward manner. Generalized Structured Component Analysis: A Component-Based Approach to Structural Equation Modeling provides a detailed account of this novel statistical methodology and its various extensions. The authors present the theoretical underpinnings of generalized structured component analysis and demonstrate how it can be applied to various empirical examples. The book enables quantitative methodologists, applied researchers, and practitioners to grasp the basic concepts behind this new approach and apply it to their own research. The book emphasizes conceptual discussions throughout while relegating more technical intricacies to the chapter appendices. Most chapters compare generalized structured component analysis to partial least squares path modeling to show how the two component-based approaches differ when addressing an identical issue. The authors also offer a free, online software program (GeSCA) and an Excel-based software program (XLSTAT) for implementing the basic features of generalized structured component analysis.

Originally published in 1992, the editors of this volume fulfill three main goals: to take stock of progress in the development of data-analysis procedures for single-subject research; to clearly explain errors of application and consider them within the context of new theoretical and empirical information of the time; and to closely examine new developments in the analysis of data from single-subject or small n experiments. To meet these goals, this book provides examples of applicable single-subject research data analysis. It presents a wide variety of topics and perspectives and hopes that readers will select the data-analysis strategies that best reflect their methodological approaches, statistical sophistication, and philosophical beliefs. These strategies include visual analysis, nonparametric tests, time-series experiments, applications of statistical procedures for multiple behaviors, applications of meta-analysis in single-subject research, and discussions of issues related to the application and misapplication of selected techniques.

Statistics Explained is an accessible introduction to statistical concepts and ideas. It makes few assumptions about the reader's statistical knowledge, carefully explaining each step of the analysis and the logic behind it. The book: provides a clear explanation of statistical analysis and the key statistical tests employed in analysing research data gives accessible explanations of how and why statistical tests are used includes a wide range of practical, easy-to-understand worked examples. Building on the international success of earlier editions, this fully updated revision includes developments in statistical analysis, with new sections explaining concepts such as bootstrapping and structural equation modelling. A new chapter - 'Samples and Statistical Inference' - explains how data can be analysed in detail to examine its suitability for certain statistical tests. The friendly and straightforward style of the text makes it accessible to all those new to statistics, as well as more experienced students requiring a concise guide. It is suitable for students and new researchers in disciplines including Psychology, Education, Sociology, Sports Science, Nursing, Communication, and Media and Business Studies. Presented in full colour and with an updated, reader-friendly layout, this new edition also comes with a companion website featuring supplementary resources for students. Unobtrusive cross-referencing makes it the ideal companion to Perry R. Hinton's SPSS Explained, also published by Routledge. Perry R. Hinton has many years of experience in teaching statistics to students from a wide range of disciplines and his understanding of the problems students face forms the basis of this book.

In this volume academic and researchers from across disciplines including education, psychology and health studies come together to discuss personal, political and professional narratives of struggle, resilience and hope. Contributors draw from a rich body of auto-biographical research examining the role of narrative and how it can be constructed, considering the roles of significant others, inspirational, educational and fiction characters, as well as myth and legend, to compose a life story. The book discusses how personal narrative, often neglected in social and psychological enquiry, can be a valuable resource across a range of settings. Reference is made to the evolving role of narrative in studies of educational process, in health and other forms of professional practice, and in psychotherapy. The book also includes examples that go beyond words, demonstrating other ways of representing lives through research, using art, fiction and poetry. Rather than providing a 'how to' guide, this book illustrates the range of work possible using narrative.Each chapter outlines a specific study, describes the context, explains the methodology and illuminates important findings with examples from the research. Further implication for research and practice are also discussed making this book important reading for postgraduate and doctoral students, those teaching research methods, as well as academics and researchers developing biographical and auto/biographical narrative research. The text will appeal to those from a range of disciplines including education, health and social care, counselling and psychotherapy.

This book focuses on how statistical reasoning works and on training programs that can exploit people's natural cognitive capabilities to improve their statistical reasoning. Training programs that take into account findings from evolutionary psychology and instructional theory are shown to have substantially larger effects that are more stable over time than previous training regimens. The theoretical implications are traced in a neural network model of human performance on statistical reasoning problems. This book apppeals to judgment and decision making researchers and other cognitive scientists, as well as to teachers of statistics and probabilistic reasoning.

In a managed care era, the MMPI-2 is becoming an overloaded workhorse, required to generate more and more of the assessments that a battery of instruments once did. Though all now rely on the MMPI-2 for good reasons, and the MMPI has fallen out of use entirely, some important and clinically useful scales were lost in the transition. Edward Gotts and Thomas Knudsen have recovered these scales and integrated them with all the standard MMPI-2 scales, the recently published Restructured Clinical Scales, and a number of scales they have constructed to assess positive strengths and coping abilities, and response consistency-inconsistency. This book lays out their new Content Cluster interpretive approach. Drawing on data from a large psychiatric inpatient sample, they present item composition, reliability, and validity information for each recovered and new scale, and convincingly demonstrate that their new Content Cluster approach results in improved prediction and interpretive power. They also show how to conjoin Rorschach and MMPI-2 results in more effective assessment strategies, and how to tie MMPI-2 results to specific DSM-IV criteria. The Clinical Interpretation of the MMPI-2: A Content Cluster Approach offers psychologists essential new tools for clinical and personality assessment.

This new monograph presents Dr. Luce's current understanding of the behavioral properties people exhibit (or should exhibit) when they make selections among alternatives and how these properties lead to numerical representations of those preferences. It summarizes, and places in historical perspective, the research Dr. Luce has done on utility theory for over 10 years. Included are axiomatic theoretical formulations, experiments designed to test individual assumptions, and analyses of the fit to bodies of data of numerical representations derived from the theory.

Volume I is the first of two volumes that document the three components of the CHILDES Project. It is divided into two parts which provide an introduction to the use of computational tools for studying language learning. The first part is the CHAT manual, which describes the conventions and principles of CHAT transcription and recommends specific methods for data collection and digitization. The second part is the CLAN manual, which describes the uses of the editor, sonic CHAT, and the various analytic commands. The book will be useful for both novice and experienced users of the CHILDES tools, as well as instructors and students working with transcripts of child language. Volume II describes in detail all of the corpora included in the CHILDES database. The conversational interactions in the corpora come from monolingual children and their caregivers and siblings, as well as bilingual children, older school-aged children, adult second-language learners, children with various types of language disabilities, and aphasic recovering from language loss. The database includes transcripts in 26 different languages.The CD-ROM that accompanies these volumes includes the transcript files described in Volume II. It runs on both Windows and Macintosh platforms. For more information or updates to the files, visit the CHILDES website at http: //childes.psy.cmu.ed

This book begins with an introductory outline of the structure of the city politics of the United States. There is a study of the city in the federal system, including the politics of feudal aid. This is followed by four case studies: the political roles of mayor, manager, boss and adminstrator-entrepreneur in the city.

Madgwick concludes with some comparative reflections indicating the significance of this study for British local government.

This book was first published in 1970.

This book examines how individuals behave across time and to what degree that behavior changes, fluctuates, or remains stable. It features the most current methods on modeling repeated measures data as reported by a distinguished group of experts in the field. The goal is to make the latest techniques used to assess intraindividual variability accessible to a wide range of researchers. Each chapter is written in a "user-friendly" style such that even the "novice" data analyst can easily apply the techniques. Each chapter features: a minimum discussion of mathematical detail; an empirical example applying the technique; and a discussion of the software related to that technique. Content highlights include analysis of mixed, multi-level, structural equation, and categorical data models. It is ideal for researchers, professionals, and students working with repeated measures data from the social and behavioral sciences, business, or biological sciences.

Want to master research methods in psychology? Look no further! Written with new students in mind, this book will help you understand and apply research methods to every part of your degree. It will help you develop your critical and analytical skills by making features of key issues such as ethics and cultural context. It aims to entertain with interesting facts, and will enhance your understanding with examples of real studies. Other features include: Skoolkid errors Ig Nobel Prize Whoa there! and are all designed to make the study of methods enjoyable and easy.

In this volume prominent scholars from both psychology and education describe how these new rules of measurement work and how they differ from the old rules. Several contributors have been involved in the recent construction or revision of a major test, while others are well-known for their theoretical contributions to measurement. The goal is to provide an integrated yet comprehensive reference source concerned with contemporary issues and approaches in testing and measurement.

Single Case Research in Schools addresses and examines the variety of cutting-edge issues in single case research (SCR) in educational settings. Featuring simple and practical techniques for aggregating data for evidence-based practices, the book delves into methods of selecting behaviors of interest and measuring them reliably. The latter part of Single Case Research in Schools is devoted to a step-by-step model of using SCR to evaluate practices in schools. This includes considerations such as measurement, date collection, length of phases, design consideratoins, calculating effect size and reliability of measures.

Originally published in 1960, the two volumes of Experiments in Personality report a number of experiments in psychogenetics, psychopharmacology, psychodiagnostics, psychometrics and psychodynamics, all of which formed part of the programme of research which had been developing from the late 1940s at the Maudsley Hospital. Presenting the studies together in a book, rather than the more usual route of journal articles, was itself felt to be an experiment at the time, especially given the wide area covered. The decision was deliberate because all the studies reported formed part of a larger whole, which would have been lost if published separately. Volume II looks at psychodiagnostics, psychodynamics and psychometrics.

This comprehensive volume explores the set of theoretical, methodological, ethical and analytical issues that shape the ways in which visual qualitative research is conducted in psychology. Using visual data such as film making, social media analyses, photography and model making, the book uniquely uses visual qualitative methods to broaden our understanding of experience and subjectivity. In recent years, visual research has seen a growing emphasis on the importance of culture in experience-based qualitative methods. Featuring contributors from diverse research backgrounds including narrative psychology, personal construct theory and psychoanalysis, the book examines the potential for visual methods in psychology. In each chapter of the book, the contributors explore and address how a visual approach has contributed to existing social and psychological theory in their line of research. The book provides up-to-date insights into combining methods to create new multi-modal methodologies, and analyses these with psychology-specific questions in mind. It covers topics such as sexuality, identity, group processes, child development, forensic psychology, race and gender, and would be the ideal companion for those studying or undertaking research in disciplines like psychology, sociology and gender studies.

Designed for a graduate course in applied statistics, Nonparametric Methods in Statistics with SAS Applications teaches students how to apply nonparametric techniques to statistical data. It starts with the tests of hypotheses and moves on to regression modeling, time-to-event analysis, density estimation, and resampling methods. The text begins with classical nonparametric hypotheses testing, including the sign, Wilcoxon sign-rank and rank-sum, Ansari-Bradley, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Friedman rank, Kruskal-Wallis H, Spearman rank correlation coefficient, and Fisher exact tests. It then discusses smoothing techniques (loess and thin-plate splines) for classical nonparametric regression as well as binary logistic and Poisson models. The author also describes time-to-event nonparametric estimation methods, such as the Kaplan-Meier survival curve and Cox proportional hazards model, and presents histogram and kernel density estimation methods. The book concludes with the basics of jackknife and bootstrap interval estimation. Drawing on data sets from the author's many consulting projects, this classroom-tested book includes various examples from psychology, education, clinical trials, and other areas. It also presents a set of exercises at the end of each chapter. All examples and exercises require the use of SAS 9.3 software. Complete SAS codes for all examples are given in the text. Large data sets for the exercises are available on the author's website.

Categorical data are quantified as either nominal variables--distinguishing different groups, for example, based on socio-economic status, education, and political persuasion--or ordinal variables--distinguishing levels of interest, such as the preferred politician or the preferred type of punishment for committing burglary. This new book is a collection of up-to-date studies on modern categorical data analysis methods, emphasizing their application to relevant and interesting data sets. This volume concentrates on latent class analysis and item response theory. These methods use latent variables to explain the relationships among observed categorical variables. Latent class analysis yields the classification of a group of respondents according to their pattern of scores on the categorical variables. This provides insight into the mechanisms producing the data and allows the estimation of factor structures and regression models conditional on the latent class structure. Item response theory leads to the identification of one or more ordinal or interval scales. In psychological and educational testing these scales are used for individual measurement of abilities and personality traits. The focus of this volume is applied. After a method is explained, the potential of the method for analyzing categorical data is illustrated by means of a real data example to show how it can be used effectively for solving a real data problem. These methods are accessible to researchers not trained explicitly in applied statistics. This volume appeals to researchers and advanced students in the social and behavioral sciences, including social, developmental, organizational, clinical and health psychologists, sociologists, educational and marketing researchers, and political scientists. In addition, it is of interest to those who collect data on categorical variables and are faced with the problem of how to analyze such variables--among themselves or in relation to metric variables.

This book examines test validity in the behavioral, social, and educational sciences by exploring three fundamental problems: measurement, causation and meaning. Psychometric and philosophical perspectives receive attention along with unresolved issues. The authors explore how measurement is conceived from both the classical and modern perspectives. The importance of understanding the underlying concepts as well as the practical challenges of test construction and use receive emphasis throughout. The book summarizes the current state of the test validity theory field. Necessary background on test theory and statistics is presented as a conceptual overview where needed. Each chapter begins with an overview of key material reviewed in previous chapters, concludes with a list of suggested readings, and features boxes with examples that connect theory to practice. These examples reflect actual situations that occurred in psychology, education, and other disciplines in the US and around the globe, bringing theory to life. Critical thinking questions related to the boxed material engage and challenge readers. A few examples include: What is the difference between intelligence and IQ? Can people disagree on issues of value but agree on issues of test validity? Is it possible to ask the same question in two different languages? The first part of the book contrasts theories of measurement as applied to the validity of behavioral science measures.The next part considers causal theories of measurement in relation to alternatives such as behavior domain sampling, and then unpacks the causal approach in terms of alternative theories of causation.The final section explores the meaning and interpretation of test scores as it applies to test validity. Each set of chapters opens with a review of the key theories and literature and concludes with a review of related open questions in test validity theory. Researchers, practitioners and policy makers interested in test validity or developing tests appreciate the book's cutting edge review of test validity. The book also serves as a supplement in graduate or advanced undergraduate courses on test validity, psychometrics, testing or measurement taught in psychology, education, sociology, social work, political science, business, criminal justice and other fields. The book does not assume a background in measurement.

Originally published in 1926, the first part of this book attempted to formulate a theory of ability in the light of recent experimental results of the time. It discusses the nature of intelligence and the problem of special abilities, and includes a study of some typical forms of genius. The second part gives an account of a three years' experimental study of special abilities in arts and science respectively, carried out upon university students. Samples of the tests employed are included. The results are presented in non-technical form. Victoria Hazlitt was a pioneer of experimental psychology, which was particularly significant as a woman in the early twentieth century. In many cases her work anticipated later developments in psychology by many years. Today it can be enjoyed in its historical context.

Originally published in 1960, the two volumes of Experiments in Personality report a number of experiments in psychogenetics, psychopharmacology, psychodiagnostics, psychometrics and psychodynamics, all of which formed part of the programme of research which had been developing from the late 1940s at the Maudsley Hospital. Presenting the studies together in a book, rather than the more usual route of journal articles, was itself felt to be an experiment at the time, especially given the wide area covered. The decision was deliberate because all the studies reported formed part of a larger whole, which would have been lost if published separately. Volume I looks at psychogenetics and psychopharmacology.

High stakes tests are the gatekeepers to many educational and professional goals. As such, the incentive to cheat is high. This Handbook is the first to offer insights from experts within the testing community, psychometricians, and policymakers to identify and develop best practice guidelines for the design of test security systems for a variety of testing genres. Until now this information was scattered and often resided inside testing companies. As a result, rather than being able to learn from each other's experiences, each testing entity was left to re-create their own test security wheel. As a whole the book provides invaluable insight into the prevalence of cheating and "best practices" for designing security plans, training personnel, and detecting and investigating misconduct, to help develop more secure testing systems and reduce the likelihood of future security breaches. Actual case studies from a variety of settings bring to life how security systems really work. Examples from both domestic and international programs are provided. Highlights of coverage include:* Best practices for designing secure tests * Analysis of security vulnerabilities for all genres of testing * Practical cheating prevention and detection strategies * Lessons learned in actual security violations in high profile testing programs. Part I focuses on how tests are delivered for paper-and-pencil, technology-based, and classroom testing and writing assessment. Each chapter addresses the prevalence of the problem and threats to security, prevention, and detection. Part II addresses issues essential to maintaining a secure testing program such as planning and monitoring, physical security, the detection of group-based cheating, investigating misconduct, and communicating about security-related issues. Part III examines actual examples of cheating-- how the cheating was done, how it was detected, and the lessons learned. Part III provides insight into security issues within each of the Association of Test Publishers' four divisions: certification/licensure, clinical, educational, and industrial/organizational testing. Part III's conclusion revisits the issues addressed in the case studies and identifies common themes. Intended for organizations, professionals, educators, policy makers, researchers, and advanced students that design, develop, or use high stakes tests, this book is also ideal for graduate level courses on test development, educational measurement, or educational policy.

PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING: PRINCIPLES, APPLICATIONS, AND ISSUES, Ninth Edition explains the fundamentals of psychological testing, their important applications, and the controversies that emerge from those applications in clinical, education, industrial, and legal settings. Kaplan and Saccuzzo's engaging and thorough text demonstrates how psychological tests are constructed and used, both in a professional setting and in everyday lives. Part I focuses on the core concepts that affect the evaluation of all tests. Part II discusses the major types of psychological tests, while Part III looks at present-day issues affecting testing such as stereotype threat, bias, laws, and ethics. A multitude of test profiles and sample items illustrate how psychological testing is used and reported. Real-life case studies demonstrate the uses and misuses of psychological testing, while "Technical Example" boxes help you understand complex statistical concepts.