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Reliability theory shows that the variance of obtained scores is simply the sum of the variance of true scores plus the variance of errors of measurement. [7] = + This equation suggests that test scores vary as the result of two factors: 1. Variability in true scores 2.
It is worth restating the above result in words: the expected value of the score, at true parameter value is zero. Thus, if one were to repeatedly sample from some distribution, and repeatedly calculate the score, then the mean value of the scores would tend to zero asymptotically.
Firstly, if the true population mean is unknown, then the sample variance (which uses the sample mean in place of the true mean) is a biased estimator: it underestimates the variance by a factor of (n − 1) / n; correcting this factor, resulting in the sum of squared deviations about the sample mean divided by n-1 instead of n, is called ...
Similarly, the sample variance can be used to estimate the population variance. A confidence interval for the true mean can be constructed centered on the sample mean with a width which is a multiple of the square root of the sample variance.
Squared deviations from the mean (SDM) result from squaring deviations.In probability theory and statistics, the definition of variance is either the expected value of the SDM (when considering a theoretical distribution) or its average value (for actual experimental data).
A person's true score is defined as the expected number-correct score over an infinite number of independent administrations of the test. Unfortunately, test users never observe a person's true score, only an observed score, X. It is assumed that observed score = true score plus some error:
which is an unbiased estimator of the variance of the mean in terms of the observed sample variance and known quantities. If the autocorrelations are identically zero, this expression reduces to the well-known result for the variance of the mean for independent data. The effect of the expectation operator in these expressions is that the ...
In many practical applications, the true value of σ is unknown. As a result, we need to use a distribution that takes into account that spread of possible σ's. When the true underlying distribution is known to be Gaussian, although with unknown σ, then the resulting estimated distribution follows the Student t-distribution.