Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

The measurement of change has received considerable attention in the literature of psychology and education, with special consideration being given to the psychometric properties of simple gain scores and related measures. Three alternatives to the simple gain score are the residual difference, the base-free measure of change, and the Lord/McNemar estimate of true gain. Estimates of the criterion-oriented validity of these four measures were obtained from two empirical studies, and changes attributable to a course of instruction in mathematics were moderately correlated with external criteria, with values ranging from .30 to .54. Psychometric theory was used to derive a guideline useful in predicting the rank order of the validity coefficients. The coefficients obtained from the studies were highly consistent with the theoretical predictions.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Educational Testing Service. College Board Comparative Guidance and Placement Algebra Test. Princeton, NJ: Author, 1979.

Lord

F. M.

The measurement of growth. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 1956, 16, 421–437.

Lord

F. M.

Novick

M. R.

Statistical theories of mental test scores. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1968.

Manning

W. H.

DuBois

P. H.

Correlational methods in research on human learning. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1962, 15, 287–321.

McNemar

On growth measurement. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 1958, 18, 47–55.

Popham

W. J.

Educational evaluation. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1975.

Rogosa

Brandt

Zimowski

A growth curve approach to the measurement of change. Psychological Bulletin, 1982, 92, 726–748.

Tucker

L. R.

Damarin

Messick

A base-free measure of change. Psychometrika, 1966, 31, 457–473.

Williams

R. H.

Zimmerman

D. W.

Comparative validity of simple and residualized difference scores. Psychological Reports, 1982, 50, 91–94.

10.

Williams

R. H.

Zimmerman

D. W.

A critique of Knapp's “The (un) reliability of change scores in counseling research.”

Measurement and Evaluation in Guidance, 1984, 16, 179–182.

11.

Wohlwill

J. F.

Methodology and research strategy in the study of developmental change. In Goulet

L. R.

Baltes

P. B.

(Eds.), Life-span developmental psychology: Research and theory. New York: Academic Press, 1970. Pp. 149–191.

12.

Woodrow

The ability to learn. Psychological Review, 1946, 53, 147–158.

13.

Wrightstone

J. W.

Hogan

T. P.

Abbott

M. M.

Accountability in education and associated measurement problems. Test Service Notebook 33. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972.

14.

Zimmerman

D. W.

Andrews

D. A.

Robinson

Williams

R. H.

A note on non-parallelism of pretest and posttest measures in assessing change. Journal of Experimental Education, in press.

15.

Zimmerman

D. W.

Williams

R. H.

Gain scores in research can be highly reliable. Journal of Educational Measurement, 1982, 19, 149–154. (a)

16.

Zimmerman

D. W.

Williams

R. H.

On the high predictive potential of change and growth measures. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 1982, 42, 961–968. (b)

17.

Zimmerman

D. W.

Williams

R. H.

The relative error magnitude in three measures of change. Psychometrika, 1982, 47, 141–147. (c)

Empirical Estimates of the Validity of Four Measures of Change

Abstract

Get full access to this article

References