Entering scores into reports can eat into time that providers would rather devote to client-facing work. It can be tedious and requires attention to detail, and additional knowledge is necessary to ensure that data is entered, represented, and interpreted correctly. Unlike other types of data entry, accurate score entry requires an alertness to and awareness of common potential problems with test results:

Possible Problems

• Validity concerns
• Reliability concerns
• Omitted items
• Odd or unusual outliers
• Behaviors that may have impacted administration (i.e., poor engagement or effort, distractions, symptoms)
• Scoring errors
• Recent testing
• Incorrect scoring norms

The person entering and/or interpreting scores also has to have basic understanding of terms, concepts, and statistics commonly used in reports:

Common (Testing) Knowledge

• Basic understanding of the normal curve
• Familiarity with the most commonly used statistics (i.e., SS, ss, T-score, Z-score, percentile rank)
• Familiarity with score conversion and the relationships between common statistics (i.e., percentile rank equivalents to SS)
• Familiarity with types of validity scales and profiles (i.e., disclosure, debasement, “fake good”, malingering)
• The impact of outliers, highly variable subtests, and inconsistent domain-level scores on mean/composite scores (i.e., variability among cognitive index scores and its impact on the FSIQ)
• Awareness of the ways behavior can impact test administration and rating scale completion

​Enlisting the help of a writer with experience in psychological report writing for score entry ensures that scores are entered correctly and can be accurately interpreted.