Psy 550 Final Exam

PSY 550 Final Exam

Short Answers

The 20 questions below are worth 4 points each.

1. A school psychologist strongly believes a particular child is in need of special services. What is the psychologist trying to control for if he or she uses the most recently normed test available?

The school psychologist is trying to control the decrease in bias to ensure the best decision is made is for the child.  It is also possible to uncover learning disabilities using certain tests.

1. What are two benefits of the WASI?

The WASI is a quick and reliable tool for professionals and helps to assess cognitive functioning of individuals referred by psychiatric evaluations and provides FSIQ score for vocational, rehabilitation, or research purposes.

1. Identify three improvements of the WAIS-IV over the WAIS-III.

Reduced administration time, additional teaching time and decreased emphasis on motor demands and time-bonus points

1. Provide one advantage and one disadvantage of group-administered intelligence tests.

Group tests can be given to many participants at once which reduces administration time and increases test efficiency but scoring is multiple choice and is less flexible along with it does not allow for in-depth observations of individual students.

1. Give three examples of extra-test behavior on an ability test.

The way the examinee copes with frustration; how anxious, fatigued, cooperative, distractible, or compulsive the examinee appears to be; and the amount of support the examinee seems to require.

1. Name three recommended uses for the Woodcock-Johnson III.

Analysis of response to prior teaching or interventions, portfolio evaluations and analysis of data from other standardized tests.

1. Name three things that would be included in the best approach to diagnosing a specific learning ability.

Teachers provide evidence-based instruction, student learning of that instruction is regularly evaluated and if intervention is required, it occurs in some form of appropriate adjustment in the instruction.

1. What is the purpose of empirical criterion keying?

To separate items that discriminate between the criterion and control groups between items that do not discriminate between the two which are then discarded.

1. Identify two functions of validity scales on personality tests.

To assess the person’s general test-taking attitude and whether they answered the items in truthful and accurate manner.