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Psychometric Properties

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Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine

Synonyms

Psychometrics

Definition

Psychometrics is the construction and validation of measurement instruments and assessing if these instruments are reliable and valid forms of measurement. In behavioral medicine, psychometrics is usually concerned with measuring individual’s knowledge, ability, personality, and types of behaviors. Measurement usually takes place in the form of a questionnaire, and questionnaires must be evaluated extensively before being able to state that they have excellent psychometric properties, meaning a scale is both reliable and valid.

Description

A reliable scale consistently measures the same construct. This can occur across testing sessions, individuals, and settings. A valid measure measures what it says it is going to measure. If something is valid, it is always reliable. However, something can be reliable without being valid.

For example (see Fig. 1), if someone has five darts and is told to hit the bull’s eye every time, their ideal aim is to be both...

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References and Readings

  • DeVellis, R. F. (2003). Scale development: Theory and applications (2nd ed.). London: Sage.

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  • Grimm, G. L., & Yarnold, P. R. (2000). Reading and understanding more multivariate statistics. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, The University of Birmingham, B15 2TT, Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK

    Annie T. Ginty

Authors
  1. Annie T. Ginty
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Annie T. Ginty .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Behavioral Medicine Research Center, Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA

    Marc D. Gellman

  2. Cardiovascular Safety, Quintiles, Durham, NC, USA

    J. Rick Turner

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© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media, New York

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Ginty, A.T. (2013). Psychometric Properties. In: Gellman, M.D., Turner, J.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1005-9_480

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1005-9_480

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-1004-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-1005-9

  • eBook Packages: MedicineReference Module Medicine

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