Posted by ABenis on February 9, 2012, 8:55 pm, in reply to "Re: NPA test: R scores ("coherence") for various categories"
The plot of R score vs. S score has something of a V-shape mainly because N types (low F score) and Perfectionist types (high F score) tend to have elevated R scores (high coherence).
One could argue that this result is just an intrinsic result of the NPA test itself, with the test identifying clear-cut N types on the one hand, and Perfectionist types on the other hand. This could be partly true. Nevertheless, randomly-answered tests ("disordered mind") fall in a clearly-defined region of low R-score, and the test usually gives the result of "NA-" type for those tests. Conversely, we found that the ADD group of internet subjects (who one would a priori predict would have disordered response) did indeed have one of the lowest mean R-scores of all the groups.
The plot of "ADD vs. autism, parents" showed significant overlap between the two groups. Hence, the result of the NPA test's indicating that ADD subjects tend to have a more disordered response ("lower coherence") would be valid only in a statistical sense, and it could not be applied to any individual subject.
In general, one could say that a high R score rules out a highly-disordered (random) response to the questions on the test. Conversely, however, for a low R-score one could say only that the test is consistent either with a disordered response, or an unusual ("exceptional") response, and for an individual test one should not leap to the conclusion that the former is the case.
With regard to the quantitative value of R, the value of 57.5 delineates rather well randomly-answered tests from actual tests: 95% of random tests have R below this value, while over 95% of actual tests have R above this value.
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