Testing and Measurement: A User-Friendly Guide - Paperback

by Sharon E. Robinson Kurpius (Author), Mary E. Stafford (Author)

This step-by-step approach allows students to master testing and measurement concepts through practical exercises and feedback. Using humor, cartoons and real-world examples, Sharon E. Robinson Kurpius and Mary E. Stafford guide the reader through the essential components of measurement, starting with measurement scales and ending with reliability and validity. The authors show that everyone can learn testing and measurement concepts, and they make the learning process fun and non-threatening. For those who want to challenge themselves beyond the self-instructional exercises included throughout each chapter, data sets are provided as an aid to further learning. The book is invaluable for all introductory courses in measurement and testing at undergraduate and lower-level graduate level in the social and behavioral sciences.

Author Biography

Sharon E. Robinson Kurpius, Ph.D., received her doctoral degree from Indiana University in 1978. She double majored in Counseling Psychology and Educational Inquiry Methodology. Upon graduation, she left the wintery midwest to join the counseling faculty at Arizona State University. As a professor at ASU, she has taught as variety of courses such as Research and Evaluation, Research in Counseling, Psychological Testing, Professional Ethics, Health and Wellness, and Doctoral Practicum. Dr. Robinson Kurpius has received many national grants to study alcohol and substance abuse among adolescents, to work with talented at-risk teenage girls, to teach college professors and high school teachers how to be more effective in keeping girls and minorities in the math and sciences, and to bring engineering concepts to the K-12 classroom. In addition to her work as a professor, Dr. Robinson Kurpius is actively involved in psychological consultation and has worked with major telephone companies, hospitals, and mental health agencies to improve quality of work life. Of the things she likes to do best, the most liked is playing with her granddaughter, followed by riding horses in the Colorado mountains, skiing blue and green slopes in Utah, or reading a good book.

Mary E. Stafford, Ph.D. currently is a faculty member in the School Psychology Program in the Division of Psychology in Education at Arizona State University. She teaches courses in child counseling, diagnosis and interventions with emotionally handicapped children and adolescents, physiological bases of behavior, applied research in school psychology, and intellectual assessment. Previously, she has worked with children in public school and residential treatment center settings as math teacher, counselor, psychometrician, and school principal. Dr. Stafford received her Ph.D. in educational psychology with an emphasis in school psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research and writing has focused on psychometric issues of personality and vocational tests, at-risk children′s achievement and adjustment in schools, resiliency, and socioeconomic and cultural issues in mental health. Her hobbies include hiking in the mountains, going to the symphony, and reading.