Psychological Assessment and Testing: Principles, History, and Psychometrics

Vocabulary flashcards covering fundamental concepts in psychological assessment, testing instruments, historical figures, ethical guidelines, classical test theory, and psychometric reliability.

Psychological Testing

The process of measuring psychology-related variables by means of devices and procedures designed to obtain a sample of behavior.

Psychological Assessment

The gathering and integration of psychology-related data for the purpose of making a psychological evaluation through the use of tools such as tests, interviews, case studies, and behavioral observation.

Binet-Simon Test

An early psychological test published in 1905 by Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon to help identify Paris school children in need of specialized educational placement.

Stanford-Binet Test

A standardized intelligence scale adapted from the Binet-Simon test capable of identifying the IQ of individuals aged $2$ to $89$ years old.

Central Tendency Effect

A response bias in rating scales where a test-taker consistently selects intermediate or middle responses (such as consistently choosing 3 on a 1-to-5 scale).

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

A widely used psychological test designed to assess personality disorders and neurodevelopmental conditions, featuring scales that detect whether an individual is faking good or faking bad.

Retrospective Assessment

The use of evaluative tools to draw conclusions about psychological aspects of a person as they existed at a specific point in time prior to the assessment (such as in a psychological autopsy).

Remote Assessment

The use of evaluative tools to draw conclusions about psychological aspects of a client who is not in physical proximity to the clinician conducting the evaluation.

Psychological Portfolio

An assessment tool consisting of an archive of work products, correspondence, art, audio recordings, and other representative materials demonstrating a client's history and development.

Case History Data

Records, transcripts, letters, and archival accounts in written, pictorial, or other media that preserve pertinent background information regarding an examinee.

Behavioral Observation

Monitoring the actions of others or oneself by visual or electronic means while systematically recording quantitative and qualitative information regarding those actions.

Role-Play Test

An assessment tool wherein a client is directed to act out an improvised or partially improvised role in a simulated situation.

Computer-Assisted Psychological Assessment (CAPA)

Technological assistance that computers provide directly to test users and evaluators to manage, administer, score, and interpret psychological measures.

Computer Adaptive Testing (CAT)

A computer-driven testing system that dynamically tailors item selection and difficulty according to the test-taker's demonstrated performance level.

Wilhelm Max Wundt

Known as the Father of Modern Psychology; founded the first experimental psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig in Germany, emphasizing how individuals are similar rather than different.

James McKeen Cattell

An American student of Wilhelm Wundt and the 4th President of the APA who coined the term 'mental test' and completed his doctoral dissertation on individual differences in reaction time.

Charles Spearman

A psychologist credited with originating the concept of test reliability and constructing the mathematical framework for factor analysis.

David Wechsler

A clinical psychologist at Bellevue Hospital in New York City who introduced the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) in 1939 to measure adult intelligence.

Self-Report Measure

A personality assessment method where the examinee describes their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, which can introduce response bias.

Projective Test

A personality assessment technique where examinees interpret unstructured or ambiguous stimuli, minimizing deliberate faking but generally yielding lower reliability and validity.

Republic Act No. 10029

The Philippine Psychology Act of 2009; mandates that psychology practitioners base all expert opinions, recommendations, and diagnostic statements on substantial data and adequate assessment procedures.

Limits of Confidentiality

The legal and ethical principle establishing that confidentiality is not absolute and must be breached when clear public peril or personal danger to the client arises.

Informed Assent

The willingness to participate in assessment provided by minors, individuals with disabilities, or non-competent clients, which must be paired with informed consent from a legal guardian.

Trait

A distinguishable, relatively enduring characteristic in which one individual differs from another across different situations and over time.

State

A temporary, less enduring psychological condition or situation-specific reaction that differentiates one person from another at a given moment.

Psychological Construct

An informed, scientific idea developed or constructed to describe, explain, or infer unobservable patterns of behavior.

Classical Test Theory (CTT)

A psychometric framework (also called true score theory) postulating that an observed score ($X$) consists of a true score ($T$) plus measurement error ($E$).

Measurement Error (ME)

All factors associated with the testing and evaluation process other than the actual variable intended to be measured, which inherently reduces the consistency and reliability of test results.

Random Error

An unsystematic source of measurement error that fluctuates unpredictably across administrations without a discernable pattern, thereby reducing reliability.

Systematic Error

A constant, predictable source of error that does not fluctuate across administrations and does not undermine test-score consistency.

Norm-Referenced Testing

An evaluation approach where an individual's test performance is interpreted by comparing their score to the scores obtained by a normative reference sample.

Criterion-Referenced Testing

An evaluation approach where an individual's score is assessed against a predetermined performance standard or criterion, without comparison to other examinees.

Reliability

The consistency, stability, and repeatability of test scores across different test administrations or across equivalent forms of an instrument.

Test-Retest Reliability

An estimate of reliability calculated by correlating scores obtained from the same participants on two separate administrations of the exact same test.

Coefficient of Stability

A test-retest correlation coefficient obtained when the time interval between the initial testing session and the retest exceeds six months.

Alternate-Forms Reliability

A reliability estimate derived by administering two parallel or equivalent forms of a test to the same group of examinees and correlating the two sets of scores.

Split-Half Reliability

An internal consistency estimate calculated by administering a test once, dividing it into two equivalent halves (often odd vs. even items), and correlating the scores between the halves.

Spearman-Brown Formula

A mathematical formula used to adjust a split-half correlation coefficient to estimate the reliability of the test in its full, undivided length.

Carryover Effect

A testing artifact where an examinee's performance during a second test administration is altered because they remember questions or responses from the initial administration.

Practice Effect

A specific type of carryover effect in which an examinee's score improves on repeated testing due to acquired familiarity with the test format and problem-solving strategies.

Pearson Correlation Coefficient ($r$)

A statistical index used to calculate the linear relationship between paired sets of scores, frequently applied as a reliability coefficient ranging between $0$ and $1$.