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FIVE PITFALLS ENCOUNTERED WHILE TRYING TO COMPARE STATES ON THEIR SAT SCORES
Author(s) -
WAINER HOWARD
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
journal of educational measurement
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.917
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1745-3984
pISSN - 0022-0655
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-3984.1986.tb00235.x
Subject(s) - statistics , psychology , point (geometry) , econometrics , mathematics , geometry
Recent research (Page & Feifs, 1985; Powell & Steelman, 1984; Steelman & Powell, 1985) attempts to draw inferences about the relative standing of the states on the basis of mean SAT scores. These papers point out that this cannot be done without statistically adjusting for various differences among the states. In this paper I identify five serious errors that, when made, call into question the validity of such inferences. In addition, I describe some plausible ways to avoid the errors.