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Part of the book series: Evaluation in Education and Human Services Series ((EEHS,volume 28))

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Abstract

An ongoing problem in the field of educational and psychological testing is that all measurements are contaminated by error. Consequently, measurements in this field are inaccurate, so it is of prime importance to assess the extent to which the measurements are contaminated. Classical test theory was developed in order to deal with this problem of measurement error. A central role in this theory is played by the concept of reliability, i.e., the extent to which observed variation reflects true variation in measurements or, more technically, the ratio of true to observed score variance. For the estimation of reliability, parallel measurements are needed-measurements with identical true scores and error variances. The correlation between two parallel measurement instruments in a sample from the population of interest, r xx, estimates the population reliability.

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Authors

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Ronald K. Hambleton Jac N. Zaal

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© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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de Gruijter, D.N.M., van der Kamp, L.J.T. (1991). Generalizability Theory. In: Hambleton, R.K., Zaal, J.N. (eds) Advances in Educational and Psychological Testing: Theory and Applications. Evaluation in Education and Human Services Series, vol 28. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2195-5_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2195-5_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-7484-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-2195-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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