Ceiling Floor Effects
Let s talk about floor and ceiling effects for a minute.
Ceiling floor effects. A floor effect is when most of your subjects score near the bottom. Ceiling effects and floor effects both limit the range of data reported by the instrument reducing variability in the gathered data. Ceiling effects and floor effects both limit the range of data reported by the instrument reducing variability in the gathered data. This is even more of a problem with multiple choice tests.
In statistics a floor effect also known as a basement effect arises when a data gathering instrument has a lower limit to the data values it can reliably specify. The other scale attenuation effect is the ceiling effect floor effects are occasionally encountered in psychological testing. The term ceiling effect is a measurement limitation that occurs when the highest possible score or close to the highest score on a test or measurement instrument is reached thereby decreasing the likelihood that the testing instrument has accurately measured the intended domain. The inability of a test to measure or discriminate below a certain point usually because its items are too difficult.
A ceiling effect can occur with questionnaires standardized tests or other measurements used in research studies. In layperson terms your questions are too hard for the group you are testing. Limited variability in the data gathered on one variable may reduce the power of statistics on correlations between that variable and another variable.