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Home > Statistics Every Writer Should Know > The Stats Board > Discusssion

test results
Message posted by linda rae brown on June 26, 2000 at 12:00 AM (ET)

Im curious about what you think. I took a law school test (2 essay exams and 1 fill in) in which there were 2 groups- 1 group took 3 tests in 3 hours another group took 2 tests in 3 hours. The mean score for the 2 group was practically the same. The problem is, the lowest score on Question 1 in the 2 test group was 50, the 3 test group low was 29. Similarly, Question 2 the 2 test low was 35 and the 3 test group was 27. There is also a disparity between the average low for the 2 test group= 52.5% and the 3 test group average low of 36%. Does the disparity mean anything? Im trying to prove that the test was unfair to the 3 test group.


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Re: test results
Message posted by k banna on June 26, 2000 at 12:00 AM (ET)

if you can get a hold of the grade distributions for the different tests, this may tell you something... the averages for the two groups may be the same, but maybe the standard deviations are significantly different from one another... if there is more variability in scores for one group, that may tell you something, for instance, maybe people in the three test group had more variance in test scores (i.e., more extreme low/high scores) than the two test group... i don't know what that would tell you about fairness exactly, but it can show a difference between the two test conditions...



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