Format
Pertains to the form, plan, structure, arrangement, and layout of test items as well as to related considerations such as time limits
Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing
Covers issues related to test construction and evaluation, test administration and use, and special applications of tests, such as special considerations when testing linguistic minorities
Test Catalogues
Provides a brief description of a test. Does not generally have highly critical test reviews
Test Manuals
Detailed information concerning the development of a particular test and technical information is found in the manual itself. Provides information on norms, administration, scoring and other data
Buros Mental Measurements Yearbook
Provides reviews of many tests to include information of the construction, validity, reliability and usefulness of the test. There are many volumes of the Burros MMY
Public Law- 94-142: Education for all Handicapped Children
Mandated screening of children with suspected mental or physical handicaps. Once identified the child must be evaluated by a professional team qualified to determine that child’s special educational needs. Child must be re-evaluated periodically. In 1986 amended to extend disability-related protections downward to infants and toddlers
Early Testing
A primitive form of proficiency testing existed in China as early as 2200 B.C.E. where some form of examination of public officials by the Chinese emperor was conducted every third year
Lightner Witmer
Has been cited as the “little-known founder of clinical psychology”
Alfred Binet
He and Theodore Simon published a 30-item “measuring scale of intelligence” designed to help identify mentally retarded Paris schoolchildren
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
Employment testing materials and procedures must be essential to the job and not discriminate against persons with handicaps
Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (1974)
Mandated that parents and eligible students be given access to school records. Also granted right to challenge findings in records(testing included) by a hearing
Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California (1974)
Therapists (and presumably psychological assessors) must reveal privileged information if a third party is endangered. In the words of the Court, “Protective privilege ends where the public peril begins”
Level A
Tests or aids that can adequately be administered, scored, and interpreted with the aid of the manual and a general orientation to the kind of institution or organization in which one is working (for instance, achievement or proficiency tests)
Level B
Tests or aids that require some technical knowledge of test construction and use and of supporting psychological and educational fields such as statistics, individual differences, psychology of adjustment, personnel psychology, and guidance (for example, aptitude tests, adjustment inventories applicable to normal populations)
Level C
Tests and aids that require substantial understanding of testing and supporting psychological fields, together with supervised experience in the use of these devices (for instance, projective tests, individual mental tests). Primarily psychologists
Eugenics
The movement devoted to improving the human species through the control of hereditary factors in mating; possible testing for sterilization
Trait
Has been defined as “any distinguishable, relatively enduring way in which one individual varies from another”
Base Rate
The extent to which a particular trait, behavior, characteristic, or attribute exists in the population (expressed as a proportion)
Hit Rate
The proportion of people a test accurately identifies as possessing or exhibiting a particular trait, behavior, characteristic, or attribute
K-ABC
Designed for use with testtakers from age 2 ½ through age 12 ½. Subtests measuring both intelligence and achievement are included