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Guidelines for Interpreting and Reporting Subscores
Author(s) -
Feinberg Richard A.,
Jurich Daniel P.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
educational measurement: issues and practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.158
H-Index - 52
eISSN - 1745-3992
pISSN - 0731-1745
DOI - 10.1111/emip.12142
Subject(s) - interpretation (philosophy) , value (mathematics) , statistics , econometrics , mathematics , psychology , computer science , programming language
Recent research has proposed a criterion to evaluate the reportability of subscores. This criterion is a value‐added ratio ( VAR ), where values greater than 1 suggest that the true subscore is better approximated by the observed subscore than by the total score. This research extends the existing literature by quantifying statistical significance and effect size for using VAR to provide practical guidelines for subscore interpretation and reporting. Findings indicate that subscores with VAR ≥ 1.1 are a minimum requirement for a meaningful contribution to a user's score interpretation; subscores with .9 < VAR < 1.1 are redundant with the total score and subscores with VAR ≤ .9 would be misleading to report. Additionally, we discuss what to do when subscores do not add value, yet must be reported, as well as when VAR ≥ 1.1 may be undesirable.