Chapter 1 Abstract

 

            This chapter serves as an overview of the measurement approach that forms the basis for this book. It begins with a broad description of what is meant by “measurement” and describes a process called construct modeling for the measurement of psychosocial properties or attributes. Generally, I will call the method of gathering information about a property the measurement instrument, but in specific contexts, this may be a psychological scale, an achievement test, a behavior checklist, or a survey, and, when writing about that context, I will refer to it as such. The remainder of the chapter then outlines a specific instrument development framework that I call the BEAR Assessment System (BAS). This chapter summarizes the four “building blocks” that guide instrument development and is contextualized within a specific example in educational measurement to illustrate the points being made. The four following chapters (i.e., Chapters 2-5) each describe one of the building blocks in detail: the construct map, the items design, the outcome space, and the Wright map. Nine specific example applications are used throughout the following chapters to illustrate how each building block operates (see Appendix A: The Examples Archive). The function of each block is mirrored in an online instrument development and deployment environment called the BEAR Assessment System Software (BASS), and its application to these Examples can be found at the website noted in Appendix B of the book: Computerized design, development, delivery, scoring and reporting—BASS.

 

            After having finished the initial development of a measuring instrument, one must then engage in quality control of the measurements, and this is the focus of the next three chapters. Chapter 6 describes processes of evaluating the results of applying the statistical model and using the Wright map. Together, Chapters 7 and 8 describe ways to examine the trustworthiness of the instrument and its products, focusing on precision and reliability (in Chapter 7) and validity and fairness (in Chapter 8). The many different analyses conducted in these chapters are also carried out in the BASS environment and may be accessed at the BASS website. The final two chapters invite readers to (a) build on and then (b) go beyond the 4 building blocks as they begin their own exploration of measurement, both as an application in the topics they find interesting, and as a topic in its own right.