Measurement Theory and Applications for the Social Sciences by Bandalos, Deborah L.;

Which types of validity evidence should be considered when determining whether a scale is appropriate for a given measurement situation? What about reliability evidence? Using clear explanations illustrated by examples from across the social and behavioral sciences, this engaging text prepares students to make effective decisions about the selection, administration, scoring, interpretation, and development of measurement instruments. Coverage includes the essential measurement topics of scale development, item writing and analysis, and reliability and validity, as well as more advanced topics such as exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, item response theory, diagnostic classification models, test bias and fairness, standard setting, and equating. End-of-chapter exercises (with answers) emphasize both computations and conceptual understanding to encourage readers to think critically about the material. The companion website (www.guilford.com/bandalos-materials) provides annotated examples, syntax, and datasets in both SPSS and SAS (for most chapters), so that readers can redo the analyses in each chapter.

"Highly readable--the statistical and measurement concepts are described so clearly that even students who think they hate math should be able to grasp the fundamentals. The writing style adds a personal touch to the technical content. Additional strengths are examples from a wide variety of disciplines, the breadth and depth of content coverage, and the step-by-step derivations of mathematical equations."--Lihshing Leigh Wang, PhD, Quantitative and Mixed Methods Research Methodologies Program, College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services, University of Cincinnati

"This text is perfect for psychometrics courses for clinical graduate students, and is also a great introductory text for those who plan to become researchers. It provides equations and explains them for students with varying backgrounds in mathematics. This book meets my needs! It covers the more complex topics that I teach (generalizability theory, item response theory) with sufficient technical detail, but does so in a way that is accessible to most graduate students."--Marcus Boccaccini, PhD, Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program, Sam Houston State University

“A pleasure to read. Effective examples show me that the author really knows the information, and better yet, is able to communicate it well. Many tests and measurement texts are more successful in boring students to death, rather than teaching them, but not this one! It covers much of the material I teach in my course."--John Wallace, PhD, Department of Psychological Science, Ball State University

"Presents a thorough explanation of measurement theory and how it applies to test development in the educational, cognitive, and affective domains. Because of its practicality and comprehensiveness, this text will be extremely useful to any student or faculty member interested in measurement theory."--Scott L. Graves Jr., PhD, Department of Counseling, Psychology, and Special Education, Duquesne University

I. Instrument Development and Analysis
1. Introduction
2. Norms and Standardized Scores
3. The Test Development Process
4. Writing Cognitive Items
5. Writing Noncognitive Items
6. Item Analysis for Cognitive and Noncognitive Items
II. Reliability and Validity
7. Introduction to Reliability and the Classical Test Theory Model
8. Methods of Assessing Reliability
9. Interrater Agreement and Reliability
10. Generalizability Theory
11. Validity
III. Advanced Topics in Measurement Theory
12. Exploratory Factor Analysis
13. Confirmatory Factor Analysis
14. Item Response Theory, with Christine E. DeMars
15. Diagnostic Classification Models, with Laine P. Bradshaw
16. Bias, Fairness, and Legal Issues in Testing
17. Standard Setting
18. Test Equating