Appraisal in Counseling

1
Appraisal in Counseling

• Session 2

2
Schedule

• Finish History
• Statistical Concepts
• Scales of measurement
• Norm-referenced versus Criterion-referenced
  instruments
• Measures of Central Tendency
• The Normal Curve
• Measures of Variability
• Types of Scores

3
Statistics in Appraisal

1. A language, communication, from one professional
   to another.
2. How much confidence can I put in this
   instruments scores?
3. Will I consistently get the same scores every
   time I administer the instrument?
4. Do the scores really measure the concept or
   construct I want to measure?
5. What can this instrument tell us? What can it
   not tell us?
6. What is the meaning of the score(s)? Compared
   to?
7. How can scores be explained?

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Assessment

• Standards for Educational and Psychological
  Testing any method used to measure
  characteristics of people, programs or objects.
• Anastasi Urbina objective, standardized
  measure of a sample of behavior
• Cronbach systematic procedure for observing
  behavior and describing it with the aid of
  numerical scales or fixed categories.

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Samples of Behavior

• Usually measuring constructs such as
  intelligence, interest, etc. which cannot be
  measured directly.
• Since only samples are gathered must determine if
  sample is how person usually acts and are
  inferences we are making correct.
• Use objective, standardized and systematic
  measures to gather samples.

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Assessment Integral to Counseling

• Assessing client problems.
• Conceptualizing and defining client problems
• Selecting and implementing effective treatment
• Evaluating counseling.

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Benefits of Using Testing

• Aids focusing on developmental issues
• Aids problem solving
• Helps decision making
• Psychoeducational tools

• Data indicate about 73 of counselors responded
  tests very important or important only 9 said
  never used.

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Minimum Competency for Proper Test Use

• Counseling and interpretation
• Establish rapport
• Know the instrument and the construct completely
• Willing to interpret offer guidance
• Avoid labeling people on basis of test scores
• Careful about assuming norms for one group apply
  to other groups
• Do your homework

• Proper testing environment
• Examinee follows directions so test scores are
  accurate
• Avoid coaching or training
• Scoring errors
• Avoid scoring recording errors
• Keep scoring keys test materials secure
• Know your instruments psychometric properties

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Statistics

• Scales of Measurement
• Nominal
• Ordinal
• Interval
• Ration

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Nominal

• categories, not ranked
• manipulating the numbers arithmetically makes no
  sense
• Example Continent of Birth
• 1 Asia
• 2 Africa
• 3 Europe
• 4 Latin America
• 5 North America
• What is the arithmetic mean?

• Continent of Birth
• Continent Frequency Cumulative
• Asia 151 64.8 64.8
• Africa 22 9.4 74.2
• Europe 31 13.3 87.6
• Middle East 8 3.4 91.0
• Latin America 7 3.0 94.0
• North America 1 .4 94.4
• US America 7 3.0 97.4
• Caribbean 5 2.1 99.6
• New Zealand 1 .4 100.0
• Total 233 100.0 100.0

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Frequency Distribution
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Ordinal

• categories in rank order
• manipulating the numbers arithmetically may not
  make sense.
• Example OpinionsLikert-like scale
• Median, Mode, Range, Percentile. Not the
  arithmetic mean

• Instructions Please mark the number from the
  scale that best corresponds to your answer.
• 1------------------------------2-----------------
  ----------3---------------------------4
• Strongly Disagree Agree
  Strongly
• Disagree Somewhat Somewhat
  Agree
• I think of myself as being U.S. American.
• 1------------------------------2-----------------
  ----------3---------------------------4

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Ordinal Data

• US Ident 1 N233
• Code Freq Percent Cumulative Percent
• 1.00 130 55.8 56.0
• 2.00 56 24.0 80.2
• 2.50 1 .4 80.6
• 3.00 33 14.2 94.8
• 4.00 12 5.2 100.0
• Total 232 99.6
• Missing 1 .4
• Total 233 100.0
• Median 1.0000 Strongly Disagree
• Mode 1.00 Strongly Disagree
• Minimum 1.00 Strongly Disagree
• Maximum 4.00 Strongly Agree
• Range 4.00 (Max-Min)1

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Interval/Ratio Data

• Interval and ratio are similar
• continuous variable
• can be represented numerically
• Mean, median, mode, frequency, range, percentage,
  percentile
• Interval
• may not make sense when we talk about ratio
• for instanceIQ..is someone who has an IQ of 50
  half as intelligent as someone with an IQ of 100?
  Or does a zero IQ mean an absence of
  intelligence?
• Examples IQ or scores on an achievement test or
  the GRE, MAT, SAT
• Ratio
• continuous data with true zeros.
• Height, weight, age

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Norm referenced vs. Criterion referenced
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Measures of Central Tendency

• Mode
• Median
• Mean

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Measures of Central Tendency

• Mode
• is the most frequent score
• can describe multimodal curves
• least stable of the measures because it is not
  readily repeatable
• it is affected by the number of people taking the
  test
• not affected by extreme scores
• NOIR

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Measures of Central Tendency

• Median
• middle score achieved
• 50 of the scores are higher than this score and
  50 are lower than this score.
• If there is no middle, we create it.
• The median can tell us more about data which is
  skewed versus data which is normal
• It is not effected by extreme scores
• No indication of multimodalness.
• IR

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Measures of Central Tendency

• Mean
• algebraic arithmetic average
• sum of the scores/number of observations
• it is affected by extreme scores
• most frequently used Measure because it lends
  itself readily to more complex manipulations.
• Used most extensively to describe normal
  distributions.
• NOIR

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Variability
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Measures of Dispersion

• Measure of the spread of scores
• Range
• The range is the highest score minus the lowest
  score plus 1.
• Variance
• How widely spread are the scores from the mean
• Standard Deviation
• Takes the variance and standardizes it so that
  the standard deviation is described in the same
  units as the original scores.