PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES in research

Reliability
LAYBA MARYAM
HIRA NADEEM
PSYCHOMETRICS
• Psychometrics is the construction and validation of

measurement instruments and assessing if these
instruments are reliable and valid forms of
measurement. In behavioral medicine, psychometrics is
usually concerned with measuring individual’s
knowledge, ability, personality, and types of behaviors.
• Measurement usually takes place in the form of a
questionnaire, and questionnaires must be evaluated
extensively before being able to state that they have
excellent psychometric properties, meaning a scale is
both reliable and valid.
• Psychometric properties can be applied to
questionnaires, outcome measures, clinical
tools, scales or special tests. For the
remainder of the page, the term "tool" will
apply to describe all of these categories.
• PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES INCLUDES
VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY
RELIABILITY
• Reliability refers to the extent to which a
measurement is consistent and free from
error. Reliability is often associated with
reproducibility or dependability of a
measurement.
INTRODUCTION
• Reliability refers mainly to stability, internal consistency and
equivalence of a measure. It is important to highlight that the reliability
is not a fixed property of a questionnaire. On the contrary, reliability
relies on the function of the instrument, of the population in which it is
used, on the circumstances, on the context; that is, the same
instrument may not be considered reliable under different conditions.
• Reliability estimates are affected by several aspects of the assessment

environment (raters, sample characteristics, type of instrument,
administration method) and by the statistical method used.
• Therefore, the results of a research using measurement instruments
can only be interpreted when the assessment conditions and the
statistical approach are clearly presented
TYPES OF RELIABILITY
Estimation of Reliability
TEST RETEST METHOD:

The goal of estimating reliability is to determine how much of the variability in test scores
is due to errors in measurement and how much is due to variability in true scores.
• Four practical strategies have been developed that provide workable methods of
estimating test reliability.
• 1. Test-retest reliability method: directly assesses the degree to which test scores are
consistent from one test administration to the next.
• It involves:
• Administering a test to a group of individuals
• Re-administering the same test to the same group at some later time
• Correlating the first set of scores with the second
• The correlation between scores on the first test and the scores on the retest is used to
estimate the reliability of the test using the
Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient
PARALLEL FORMS METHOD
The key to this method is the development of alternate test forms that are equivalent in terms of
content, response processes and statistical characteristics. For example, alternate forms exist for
several tests of general intelligence, and these tests are generally seen equivalent.
• With the parallel test model it is possible to develop two forms of a test that are equivalent in the
sense that a person's true score on form A would be identical to their true score on form B. If both
forms of the test were administered to a number of people, differences between scores on form A
and form B may be due to errors in measurement only.
• It involves:
• Administering one form of the test to a group of individuals
• At some later time, administering an alternate form of the same test to the same group of people
• Correlating scores on form A with scores on form B
• The correlation between scores on the two alternate forms is used to estimate the reliability of the
test.
• This method provides a partial solution to many of the problems inherent in the
test-retest reliability method. For example, since the two forms of the test are different,
carryover effect is less of a problem. Reactivity effects are also partially controlled; although taking
the first test may change responses to the second test. However, it is reasonable to assume that
the effect will not be as strong with alternate forms of the test as with two administrations of the
same test.
DISADVANTAGES OF PARALLEL FORMS
However, this technique has its disadvantages:

- It may be very difficult to create several
alternate forms of a test
- It may also be difficult if not impossible to
guarantee that two alternate forms of a test are
parallel measures
SPLIT HALF METHOD
• This method treats the two halves of a measure as alternate forms. It provides a simple
solution to the problem that the parallel-forms method faces: the difficulty in developing
alternate forms.
It involves:
• Administering a test to a group of individuals
• Splitting the test in half
• Correlating scores on one half of the test with scores on the other half of the test
• The correlation between these two split halves is used in estimating the reliability of the test.
This halves reliability estimate is then stepped up to the full test length using the
Spearman–Brown prediction formula.
• There are several ways of splitting a test to estimate reliability. For example, a 40-item
vocabulary test could be split into two subtests, the first one made up of items 1 through 20
and the second made up of items 21 through 40. However, the responses from the first half
may be systematically different from responses in the second half due to an increase in item
difficulty and fatigue.
• In splitting a test, the two halves would need to be as similar as possible, both in terms of
their content and in terms of the probable state of the respondent. The simplest method is to
adopt an odd-even split, in which the odd-numbered items form one half of the test and the
even-numbered items form the other. This arrangement guarantees that each half will contain
an equal number of items from the beginning, middle, and end of the original test

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Reliability

• Psychometrics is the construction and validation of

• Reliability estimates are affected by several aspects of the assessment

TEST RETEST METHOD:

However, this technique has its disadvantages:

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