I recommend this ebook, very interesting and free. Give me your opinion.

https://blog.datascienceheroes.com/ive-book-opdata-science-len-source-new-big-release-200-pages/

Online textbook on data visualization with the ggplot2 package

I strongly recommend this online book, useful to learn nice visualization techniques with Wickham's ggplot2!

Unstructured interviews? No! Thanks!

I share the view expressed in this opinion article of the NY Times. You don't need interviews if you don't have a structure for them, otherwise, interviews won't be useful.

Improving Assessment: The Intersection of Psychology and Psychometrics

Psychometrics needs psychology, as psychometricians need psychologists, and vice versa.

The report begins by making some points about educational assessments and the psychometricians work. It then describes why and how psychometricians can learn from psychologists. The article acknowledges that the recognition that psychological findings and perspectives are critical for a well-informed psychometrics has many precedents.

"Psychometrics can be too narrowly focused on “test theory”, ... psychometricians need help from psychologists in order to move assessment forward as a way to improve education" (Lawrence, & Shea, 2008, p.1)

Psychometricians and psychologists, should and can learn with each other:

• Psychologists can enhance the ability of psychometricians to design assessments in substantively principled ways so that what test takers know is measured.
• Psychologists can identify how test takers reason and how their knowledge and reasoning is influenced by situational factors and their background knowledge.
• Psychologists are very aware of the diverse characteristics of the test takers who take assessments, and those characteristics have implications for assessment design and score interpretation.
• Psychologists can help psychometricians provide useful and comprehensible information results from testing.

Lawrence, I. M., & Shea, E. C. (2008). Improving assessment: The intersection of psychology and psychometrics (No. Report RM-08-15). Princeton, NJ, United States of America: Educational Testing Service. Retrieved from http://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/RM-08-15.pdf

Psychometry? Or psychometrics?

Psychometry or psichometrics? Which psychometrics? Not always has been an easy path - even for the definition of psychometrics that I support - but nowadays its utility is more recognized than ever. Psychometry is the paranormal ability to discover information merely by handling it while, psychometrics is (psychology) the design of psychological tests to measure and analyse psychological constructs. Unfortunately in Portuguese both are translated with the same word "psicometria".

Image from Rust and Golombok (1989, p.3)

Rust, J., & Golombok, S. (1989). Modern psychometrics: The science of psychological assessment. London: Routledge.

Psychometrics to Predict (your) World

An algorithm developed by the Psychometrics Centre of the University of Cambridge, where a broad range of verified data sources (e.g. social media, psychological data from more than 6 million participants) it's used to generate predictions of your behavior and lifestyle. This initiative born for the release of the video game Watch Dogs 2. A great demonstration of how psychometrics can be astonishing!

See your predictions with the link below!

Old but gold

How important are the scientific old texts? Well this article deserves attention... Three main focused reasons:

1. You’ll develop a rich, full and comprehensive body of knowledge.
2. You’ll discover supporting research from other disciplines that you might not have known about.
3. It’s good practice.