APA Dictionary of Psychology

n. the application of an answer key to a test or survey for the purpose of obtaining a value (score) that reflects an individual’s position on an underlying construct. The answer key would typically indicate individual scores for the different responses on each item (e.g., from 1 to 7), such that the values per item can then be summed or averaged to obtain a composite score. Some instruments may have multiple subscales yielding separate values.