Extra exercises - WEEK 3

1. In a normal distribution with a mean of 20 (SD = 1) a score of 19 corresponds to a

percentile of 16.

A test that assesses reading skills with a mean of 20 (SD = 1) is positively skewed, rather
that normally distributed. Does a score of 19 on this test correspond to a percentile P16?
Or is the corresponding percentile score higher or lower than P16?

Positive skew, so:

Thus, a lot of individuals have a low(er) score, compared to a normal distribution.

This means the percentage of individuals with a score below 19 will be larger than in a
normal distribution.
Therefore, the corresponding percentile score will be larger than 16, because more than 16%
of the individuals score below 19.

2. A student completes 2 questionnaires to receive advice on which study to choose. For both
tests a higher score indicates a stronger preference for that particular study. On the
questionnaire for a bachelor in Psychology he scores 20 points (M = 15, SD = 2), on the
questionnaire for a bachelor in Pedagogical Sciences he scores 40 points (M = 35, SD = 4).

For which of the studies is the score higher, and what should you advise him?

The most straight-forward way to decide which of the two scores is higher is to convert the
scores to z scores. You can of course also calculate the T-scores.

z = (X-M) / SD
For Psychology: z score = (20 – 15) / 2 = 5 / 2 = 2.5. So, the corresponding z score is 2.5

For Pedagogical Sciences: z score = (40 – 35) / 4 = 5 / 4 = 1.25. So, the corresponding z score
is 1.25.

This means that the z score for Psychology is higher, and you should advise him to choose
that study.
3. In 2018, 217.000 primary education pupils completed the CITO test. The mean score was
529.2, with a standard deviation of 8.1.

What percentage of pupils scored at least a 545.4 on the test?

z = (X-M) / SD = (545.4 – 529.2) / 8.1 = 16.2 / 8.1 = 2.

A z score of 2 corresponds to a percentile score of 98, so 98% of the norm group scores
below 545.4.
This means that 2% has a score of 545.4 or higher.

4. Martin completes a questionnaire about his social behaviour, since he is been getting into a
lot of fights at school lately. The questionnaire has a reliability of .89, a mean of 40 and a
standard deviation of 8. What is the corresponding T-score of Martin’s score of 24?

The score is 2 SD below average.

For a T-score with a mean of 50 and a SD of 10 this corresponds to 50 – 10 – 10 = 30.
So a score of 24 corresponds to a T-score of 30.

5. Using a diagnostic interview (M = 60; SD = 7) you want to evaluate the effect of a

behavioural intervention that is used in adolescents with a social anxiety disorder. All
scores are normally distributed. Adolescent 1 goes from a pre-treatment score of 67 to
post-treatment 53; Adolescent 2 goes from pre-treatment 74 to post-treatment 60.

Which of these adolescents shows the largest improvement in terms of percentile scores?

Adolescent 1:
Improvement from 67 to 53.
A score of 67 is exactly 1 SD above the mean (60+7), so it corresponds to a percentile score of
84.
A score of 53 is exactly 1 SD below the mean (60-7), so it corresponds to a percentile score of
16.
The difference in percentile scores is 84 - 16 = 68.

Adolescent 2:
Improvement from 74 to 60.
A score of 74 is exactly 2 SD above the mean (60+7+7), so it corresponds to a percentile score
of 98.
A score of 60 is exactly the mean (60), so it corresponds to a percentile score of 50.
The difference in percentile scores is 98 - 50 = 48.

Given that a difference of 68 is larger than 48, adolescent 1 shows the largest improvement
in terms of percentile scores.
6. A normalized z score is…
a. A linear transformation, so a difference in z scores always corresponds to the same
difference in raw scores.
b. A linear transformation, so a difference in z scores does not always correspond to
the same difference in raw scores.
c. A nonlinear transformation, so a difference in z scores always corresponds to the
same difference in raw scores.
d. A nonlinear transformation, so a difference in z scores does not always correspond
to the same difference in raw scores.
 Extra exercises - WEEK 4

1. We know the following psychometric characteristics for a psychosis-screening

questionnaire for children: scores range from 15 – 60, cut-off score is a score higher than
50. This means that children with a score above 50 will be referred to specialized care. The
test has good sensitivity (.97) and moderate specificity (.78).

If you lower the cut-off value for referral to 45, what happens to the specificity?
a. You incorrectly classify more individuals as sick, so your specificity decreases.
b. You incorrectly classify more individuals as sick, so your specificity increases.
c. You correctly classify more individuals as sick, so your specificity decreases.
d. You correctly classify more individuals as sick, so your specificity increases.

The specificity refers to the proportion of individuals that are not sick and are correctly classified
by the test as not sick. Given that the number of individuals that are in reality not sick remain the
same, more individuals are incorrectly classified with the lower cut-off, and fewer individuals are
correctly classified. The proportion of “correctly not classified as sick” thus decreases.
The specificity does not depend on the number of sick people getting a correct classification of
sick on the test; that is sensitivity.
Of course, the increased number of individuals being diagnosed by the instrument also increases
the sensitivity (correctly classified as sick), but this is not an answer option.

2. The reliability of a test is .81 and the reliability of the criterion test is .93. What is the upper
limit of the validity coefficient of the test?

You can calculate the upper limit of the validity coefficient using the appropriate formula on
your formulasheet, in which you take both reliabilities into account:

r XY ' ≤ √(r XX )(r YY )

√ (.81)(.93) = .87

3. When you assess how good a score on a questionnaire on that assesses traits of autism can
be used to predict the presence of an autism diagnosis 7 year later, you are studying …
a. Divergent validity
b. Convergent validity
c. Concurrent validity
d. Predictive validity
1. You are investigating the item-discriminatory index of the last item of an IQ-test. Of the
150 individuals in the upper class (high scoring individuals) 110 individuals answer the item
correctly. Of the 150 individuals in lower class (low scoring individuals) 15 individuals
answer the item correctly. Is this a good item in terms of discriminatory abilities?

Use the formula to calculate the item-discriminatory index, see your formula sheet.
Since you’ve been given numbers and not percentages, use the one with the N rather than
the one with 100.
Note that for the N you use the group size of either the upper or the lower class, but do not
add them together.
In a test with a normal distribution, these groups should be the same size, so that will also be
the case in this course of course - since the normal distribution is very important for a good
test.

Keep in mind that although an item-discriminatory index of 1.0 is ideal, this rarely ever
happens… You want a positive d, between .30 and .60.

U c−Lc
di=
N

110 – 15 / 150 = 0.63

So, this is a (very) good item.

2. What is the ideal item-difficulty index of a multiple choice question with 5 options?

Use the formula to correct for being lucky and guessing the correct answer.

pi =( 1+2 g )
g is chance level, for this question 1/5.
Completing the formula than gives us (1+1/5) / 2 = 1.2 / 2 = 0.6.