Assessment terms beginning with S

This is a measurement glossary, not a general HR glossary. It covers the vocabulary that appears the moment you open a score report or challenge a vendor's claim — reliability, validity, norms, cut scores, item statistics and fairness analysis — because that is the vocabulary buyers are handed without explanation and the one that decides whether a number can carry a decision.

• Social desirability bias

  Also called Faking good, Impression management

  Social desirability bias is the tendency of respondents to answer questionnaires in the way they believe will be viewed favourably rather than accurately. It inflates scores on desirable traits, compresses the differences between people, and is strongest exactly when something depends on the answer — such as a job application.

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• Standard error of measurement

  Also called SEM

  The standard error of measurement is the expected spread of a person's observed scores around their true score if they could be tested repeatedly. It converts a reliability coefficient into the units of the actual scale, which is what turns an abstract number into a usable statement about one individual candidate.

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• Standard setting

  Standard setting is the formal process of deciding where a cut score belongs. It uses a documented method — Angoff, bookmark, contrasting groups — with a panel, a written definition of the borderline candidate, and a record of the judgements, so that the resulting threshold can be defended rather than merely asserted.

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• Stanine

  Also called Standard nine

  A stanine is a standardised score on a nine-point scale with a mean of 5 and a standard deviation of 2. The name contracts 'standard nine'. Each stanine covers a fixed slice of the normal distribution, so it reports a person's position deliberately coarsely — in nine bands rather than a hundred percentile points.

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