Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
JUNE 7, 2018
PRASHANT S OJHA
UEMF17017
CONSTRUCTS AND MEASURES
Constructs are that which cannot be directly measured (but we assume exists), where measures are
directly measurable attributes that we assume relate to the construct.
The underlying phenomenon or construct that a scale is intended to reflect is often called the Latent
Variable. In statistics, latent variables (as opposed to observable variables), are variables that are
not directly observed but are rather inferred (through a mathematical model) from other variables
that are observed (directly measured). Mathematical models that aim to explain observed variables
in terms of latent variables are called latent variable models. Latent variables are features that are
not directly provided during the training process. They are not immediately evident in the training
data and are hidden variables. For example, if you are designing a face recognition model, the
training data has pixels and the label of every image. It doesn't have any information about scale
and pose that can be observed in the training data directly. These variables that are useful in
predicting the class are hidden or latent variables. For e.g., if we ask a group of shoppers’
perceptions rather than aspects of the store itself (which might be more easily assessed by direct
observation). How important the distinction is between assessing the perceptions of a respondent
with regard to some external stimulus (e.g., perceptions of the store), as opposed to characteristics
of the external stimulus (e.g., the store itself), will depend on the specific circumstances and goals
of the assessment.
A causal relationship between a latent variable and a measure implies certain empirical
relationships.
PARALLEL TESTS
Parallel testing means testing multiple applications or subcomponents of one application
concurrently to reduce the test time. Parallel tests consist of two or more parts (projects or project
suites) that check different parts or functional characteristics of an application. These parts are
executed on individual computers simultaneously. The ability to test more than one application
part "in parallel" allows you to significantly reduce the test time and test your applications more
efficiently. The parallel model. The parallel model is the most restrictive measurement model for
use in defining the composite true score. In addition to requiring that all test items measure a single
latent variable (unidimensionality), the parallel model assumes that all test items are exactly
equivalent to one another. All items must measure the same latent variable, on the same scale, with
the same degree of precision, and with the same amount of error. The rationale underlying the
model of parallel tests is that each item of a scale is precisely as good a measure of the latent
variable as any other of the scale items. The individual items are thus strictly parallel, which means
that each item’s relationship to the latent variable is presumed identical to every other item’s
relationship to that variable and the amount of error present in each item is also presumed to be
identical. Do not confuse parallel tests with distributed tests. Both of these kinds of tests consist
of several parts that are performed on separate computers. However, distributed testing also
presupposes that test parts interact with each other during the test run, while the parallel testing
approach lacks interaction between test parts.
TAU-EQUIVALENT MODEL
The tau-equivalent model is identical to the more restrictive parallel model, save that individual
item error variances are freed to differ from one another. This implies that individual items measure
the same latent variable on the same scale with the same degree of precision, but with possibly
different amounts of error (Raykov, 1997a, 1997b). All variance unique to a specific item is
therefore assumed to be the result of error. The tau-equivalent model implies that although all item
true scores are equal, each item has unique error terms:
Xik = Ti + Eik.
The essentially tau-equivalent model. The essentially tau-equivalent model is, as its name implies,
essentially the same as the tau-equivalent model. Essential tauequivalence assumes that each item
measures the same latent variable, on the same scale, but with possibly different degrees of
precision.