In educational testing, subscores may be provided based on a portion of the items from a larger test. One consideration in evaluation of such subscores is their ability to predict a criterion score. Two limitations on prediction exist. The first, which is well known, is that the coefficient of determination for linear prediction of the criterion…

In educational tests, subscores are often generated from a portion of the items in a larger test. Guidelines based on mean-squared error are proposed to indicate whether subscores are worth reporting. Alternatives considered are direct reports of subscores, estimates of subscores based on total score, combined estimates based on subscores and…