Reply To Cahan
te rms of rank order , and are therefore useful for normat ive compar i sons . Unfortunately, they have been entirely ignored by Sabers et al. As a result, Sabers et al. 's ma in content ion that it is futile to a t t empt the use of es t imated t rue scores, instead of the observed ones , for this pu rpose , is mis leading. "Effordess" est imates, like the l inear est imate cons idered by Sabers et al., are indeed valueless, especially in psychological testing, where scores are meaningful only in n o r m a tive te rms . Obviously, mul t ip lying the observed scores by a cons tant—which is convenient in te rms of the effort involved—cannot improve their reliability (Stanley, 1971). T h e only way to cope with m e a s u r e m e n t e r ror is therefore to arrive at bet ter estimates of the t rue scores than the observed scores. Of course , such estimates requi re addi t ional inves tment of t ime, effort, and know-how. This does not , however, justify the a b a n d o n m e n t of t rue score es t imat ion per se. Certainly, o n e should no t th row ou t the baby with the ba th water.