Maximizing the discriminating power of a multiple-score test

Abstract

Maximizing the discriminating power of a multiple-score test involves maximizing the homogeneity of each subtest and minimizing the correlations between subtests. A method is presented for constructing such tests from items whose intercorrelations are not too high. Under certain restrictions the saturation, defined as the proportion of inter-item covariance to total variance, is maximized for each subtest. The nucleus of each subtest is three items with high covariancesinter se. All items which will lower the saturation are discarded; the one item is added which will maximize the saturation of the resultant test. This process is repeated until all the items are included or discarded for that subtest. If the correlation between any such subtests approaches the geometric mean of their saturations, their items form a new pool for one or more subtests. Formulas are presented for deciding which items to eliminate in order to reduce further the correlations between subtests.