Measurement Theory and Applications for the Social Sciences

“For many years I found myself dissatisfied with an increasingly out-of-date classic psychometrics text but unwilling to adopt newer texts that did not provide the content coverage that I wanted for my psychometrics course. Deborah Bandalos’s measurement theory text finally let me lay that old classic to rest….[Measurement Theory and Applications for the Social Sciences] consistently presents the material in an accessible and understandable fashion without falling into the converse error of failing to convey the full complexity of the topics covered. Bandalos often begins chapters with personal anecdotes and maintains an engaging, conversational tone throughout. The chapters offer plentiful concrete examples….In a field in which the up-to-date texts tend to have either narrow or shallow coverage and the comprehensive texts tend to have fallen out of date, Bandalos’s text offers a welcome arrival that provides comprehensive and up-to-date coverage.”

—Psychometrika


“Highly readable—the statistical and measurement concepts are described so clearly that even students who think they hate math should be able to grasp the fundamentals. The writing style adds a personal touch to the technical content. Additional strengths are examples from a wide variety of disciplines, the breadth and depth of content coverage, and the step-by-step derivations of mathematical equations.”

—Lihshing Leigh Wang, PhD, Quantitative and Mixed Methods Research Methodologies Program, College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services, University of Cincinnati


“This text is perfect for psychometrics courses for clinical graduate students, and is also a great introductory text for those who plan to become researchers. It provides equations and explains them for students with varying backgrounds in mathematics. This book meets my needs! It covers the more complex topics that I teach (generalizability theory, item response theory) with sufficient technical detail, but does so in a way that is accessible to most graduate students.”

—Marcus Boccaccini, PhD, Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program, Sam Houston State University


“A pleasure to read. Effective examples show me that the author really knows the information, and better yet, is able to communicate it well. Many tests and measurement texts are more successful in boring students to death, rather than teaching them, but not this one! It covers much of the material I teach in my course.”

—John Wallace, PhD, Department of Psychological Science, Ball State University


“Presents a thorough explanation of measurement theory and how it applies to test development in the educational, cognitive, and affective domains. Because of its practicality and comprehensiveness, this text will be extremely useful to any student or faculty member interested in measurement theory.”

—Scott L. Graves Jr., PhD, Department of Counseling, Psychology, and Special Education, Duquesne University