Group Critique

Validity
Justification: The TORC-4 test procedures indicate that this assessment has high validity with strong criterion-prediction validity. The criterionprediction validity indicates yet another high level of validity. As of the fourth edition all new validity studies are reported, including a rigorous analysis of TORC-4s sensitivity and specificity. The TORC-4 is said to have content-description validity. Meaning that content-description validity involves the systematic examination of the test content to determine whether it covers a representative sample of the behavior domain to be measured (Anatasi & Urbina, 1997, p. 114). This type of validity has to be built into the test at the time the subtest and items are conceptualized. Test developers usually deal with content- description validity by showing that the abilities desired to be measured are consistent with the current knowledge about a particular area. They also demonstrate that the items hold up statistically.

Reliability
Justification: new reliability coefficients have been computed by age and subgroups within the normative sample. For tests such as the TORC-4 reliability coefficients must approximate or exceed .80 in magnitude to be considered minimally reliable. Coefficients said to be . 90 or higher are considered most desirable. Critiques describe three sources of error variance, content, time, and score. They calculated three types of correlation coefficients (coefficient alpha, test-re-test, and scorer difference), in order to measure these three sources of error. The coefficients were averaged using the fisher z-transformation technique, the average coefficients in the right hand column of the table, and all but one of the alphas in the table are at or above .90, and thus seen as highly acceptable. The single exception being .89 rounds to .90. The large magnitude of the coefficients indicates that this test is highly reliable, and thus its test results can be used with a high level of confidence.