Definition
The ceiling effect is said to occur when participants’ scores cluster toward the high end (or best possible score) of the measure/instrument. The opposite is the floor effect.
Description
In some fields (biology, physiology, etc.), the ceiling effect refers to the point at which an independent variable no longer has an effect on a dependent variable, when a kind of saturation has been reached (e.g., the phenomenon in which a drug reaches its maximum effect, so that increasing the drug dosage does not increase its effectiveness) (Baker, 2004).
In statistics/psychometrics, the term ceiling effect is used to describe how subjects in a study have scores that are at or near the possible upper limit (Everitt, 2002), so that variance is not measured or estimated above a certain level (Cramer & Howitt, 2005). In the sphere of quality of life, this limit is usually not defined by the highest score, but by the highest degree of achievement of the measured concept. Therefore, the...
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Garin, O. (2014). Ceiling Effect. In: Michalos, A.C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0753-5_296
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0753-5_296
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