Reference no: EM131547236

DIRECTIONS:READ THE FOLLOWING STUDENT DISCUSSION AND RESPOND. CITE REFERENCE USING APS FORMAT PLEASE.

Building Your Case for Final Decision on a Test

When writing for research or even academic purposes, it is important to create concise summaries, evaluations, and recommendations based on research from multiple sources.

Having strategies to accurately summarize and evaluate - without plagiarizing or seeming repetitive is an essential component of the writing and research processes. This discussion examines those strategies as well as what elements of the code of fair testing practices were the easiest and difficult to locate information on regarding and relating to the Beck Hopelessness Scale - Revised.

Strategies to Synthesize, Summarize, and Evaluate Research

Throughout this course, the unit assignments, as well as the studies throughout the week have built on one another to create a well thought out research project that examined every aspect of a single test. The research was conducted around the Beck Hopelessness Scale - Revised.

This course allowed the students to thoroughly research a test of their own chosing, to relate it to the Code of Fair Practices, to identifying and understanding the psychometrics, how these tests are scored and interpreted to make a sound recommendation as to whether or not the test would be useful in future professions. There was a lot of information gathered and utilized over the last nine units, but to avoid being repetitive, or inaccurate with the information it is important to take steps to create concise, informative summaries and evaluation.

In order to write about the Beck Hopelessness Scale - Revised, it was important to research at each step for the new assignment. From the beginning of this course it was essential to keep the research that was found and utilized in the form of downloading and saving each article as well as creating a complete, alphabetical list of all the APA references.

This provided information that could be looked back on and reviewed for future assignments. It was important to find and keep this research, but it was also important to find and incorporate new information into the assignments as the course progressed as well.

To avoid repeating information, previous assignments were not reviewed when looking to write for the new assignment. The prior research was used, but it was related to the new assignment's content needs. It was an important strategy to carefully review the assignment, create the formatted outline of the paper. Then it was important to examine the research that would be most useful and identify the sections of the paper where the information would be more useful. This showed that some research could be incorporated into multiple sections, and in with other research to create cohesive summaries and evaluations of multiple sources as they relate to the content that is being asked for.

After gathering research over the nine units, it was important that they were reviewed multiple times, and that the person utilizing them had gathered information and understood it as it related to the chosen assessment. It was important to have research gathered from the beginning of the course, as that advanced the knowledge of the chosen test, but also allowed information to be built off of and incorporated with new information to create concise summaries and evaluations of the test as a whole rather than just using the information in pieces separately.

Elements in the Code

The Joint Committee on Testing Practices (2004) identified the first four elements of the code as defining the purpose of the testing, the content, and who the test is for; describing the appropriateness of the content, skills, and coverage of the test; noting the materials provided by test developers, and selecting tests with people who have the knowledge, skills, and training to pick the test. These four elements were the easiest to locate information on the Beck Hopelessness Scale - Revised.

These four elements cover basic information regarding any test or assessment. Most articles found discussed the purpose, content, and intended population for the test. From this information, the appropriateness of the test items could be considered, the publisher discussed the materials that were provided for the test, and the people that would be appropriate test users.

So far element nine has been the most difficult to locate information for when discussing the Beck Hopelessness Scale - Revised. The Joint Committee on Testing Practices (2004) explains that the test is evaluated on solid evidence of how well the test performs in different populations.

This is where the Beck Hopelessness Scale - Revised seems limited. While the test is available in a few languages, it is not nearly as diverse as some of the other tests that have been developed. Because this element is difficult to find, it is important to take a variety of information and articles and synthesize the information that is relevant to element nine.

Conclusion

Throughout this course, research has been an important component of completing unit assignments. It was important to gather and keep research, and expand on that research to create concise summarizes and evaluations based on the selected test. Having strategies in place and an idea of what information and how it will be utilized is important to having a clear synthesis of information.

This discussion examined the strategies used to create concise summaries and evaluations as well as what elements of the code were easy and difficult to locate.