Assessment, Statistics, and Research

Two scales measure perspectives on the sacredness of parenting (Murray-Swank et al., 2006) and two others look at spirituality and pregnancy (Mahoney et al., 2009).  The authors advise researchers that they may change the word "baby" to other child age labels depending on the age of the children in their study. Thus, researchers may use labels of "toddler," "child," or "teen" in place of "baby." Spirituality Although the authors use the word God , the instructions invite participants to use their own word for the deity. Following is a copy of the instructions. Notice the different term for the scale's name. Revised Manifestation of God in Parenting Directions: Some of the following questions use the word "God." Different people use different terms for God, such as "Higher Power," "Divine Spirit," "Spiritual Force," "Holy Spirit," "Yahweh," "Allah,", &qu

The reason counselor's tests are not reliable is that reliability is a property of scores not tests.  This isn't a matter of semantics. Think about it this way. Give all the students in one school an achievement test. The test items don't change so they appear stable, consistent, and reliable. However, when publishers report reliability values, they calculate the reliability statistics based on scores. Scores vary from one administration to another. If you ever took a test twice and got a different score, you know what I mean. Individuals change from day to day. And we change from year to year. Also, even a representative sample of students for a nation can be different each year. Everytime we calculate a reliability statistic, the statistic is slightly different. Reliability values vary with the sample. Reliability values also vary with the method used for calculation. You can get high reliability values using  coefficient alpha  with scores from a one-time

Taya Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University has made the Guilt and Shame Proneness Scale (GASP) available online. Here’s what Dr. Cohen said about the scale in 2011. I’ll include a link to the full scale below. The Guilt and Shame Proneness scale (GASP) measures individual differences in the propensity to experience guilt and shame across a range of personal transgressions. The GASP contains four four ‐ item subscales: Guilt ‐ Negative ‐ Behavior ‐ Evaluation (Guilt ‐ NBE), Guilt ‐ Repair, Shame ‐ Negative ‐ Self ‐ Evaluation (Shame ‐ NSE), and Shame ‐ Withdraw. Each item on the GASP is rated on a 7-point scale from 1 = very unlikely to 7 = very likely. Here’s an example of an item from the GASP scale. _____ 1. After realizing you have received too much change at a store, you decide to keep it because the salesclerk doesn't notice. What is the likelihood that you would feel uncomfortable about keeping the money? Information about reliability, validity, a