History of Psychometrics

Different Eras in the History of Psychometrics

Chinese Influence

•   Individual Differences

•   Early Experimental Psychology

•   Interest in Mental Deficiency

•   Intelligence Testing

•   Personality Testing

CHINESE INFLUENCE

CHINESE INFLUENCE

206 BCE

• There were scattered evidences of Civil Service testing in China.

• Oral examinations were conducted to determine work evaluations and promotion decisions.

206BCE to 220 CE

• The Han Dynasty developed test batteries.

•   Test Batteries are two or more tests used in conjunction.

•   The test topics include civil law, military affairs, agriculture, revenue and geography.

• Its official

1368 CE to 1644 CE

•   The Ming Dynasty developed multistage testing.

•   From local tests they will take the provincial capital test, then lead to national capital test.

•   Only those who passed the national tests were eligible for public service.

•   Chinese influence to the Western World

1832

•   The English East India Company imitated the Chinese system to select employees for overseas duty.

•   British diplomats and missionary used the Chinese system for job selection.

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

• Rationale: In spite of our similarities, no two human beings are exactly alike.

Charles Darwin(Origin of Species, 1859)

•   He believed that some of these individual differences are more "adaptive" than others.

•   His principle of survival of the fittest states that some species have qualities that are more adaptive to the changing environment.

•   These individual differences, over time, lead to more complex, intelligent organisms.

Galton (cousin of Darwin)

•   He was an applied Darwinist. He claimed that some people possessed characteristics that made them "more fit" than others.

•   He wrote the Hereditary Genius (1869)

•   He set up an anthropometric laboratory at the International Exposition of 1884.

•   Galton Bar-for visual discrimination of length

•   Galton Whistle- for determining highest audible pitch.

•   He also noted that persons with mental retardation also tend to have diminished ability to discriminate among heat, cold and pain.

EARLY EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGISTS

•   Early 19m century scientists were generally interested in identify common aspects rather than individual differences.

•   Differences between individuals was considered a source of error, which rendered human measurement inexact.

Johan Friedrich Herbart

• He proposed Mathematical models of the mind.

•   He was the founder of Pedagogy as an academic discipline.

Erst Heinrich Weber

•   He proposed the concepts sensory thresholds and Just
  Noticeable Difference (JND).

Gustav Theodor Fechner

•   He was involved in the mathematics of sensory thresholds of experience.

•   He is the founder of Psychophysics, and one of the founders of Experimental Psychology.

•   Considered by some as the founder of psychometrics.

Weber-Fechner Law

•   It states that the strength of a sensation grows as the logarithm of the stimulus intensifies.

Wilhelm Wundt

•   Influenced by Fechner. Established the first Psych Lab.

Edward B. Titchener

•   Influenced by Wundt. He established Structuralism.

Guy Montrose Whipple

•   A student of Titchner.

•   He pioneered Human Ability Testing.

•   His seminars changed the field of psychological testing which led the APA to issue its first set of standards for professional psychological testing because of his criticisms.

•   It led to the construction of Carnegie Interest Inventory and Strong Vocational Interest Blank.

INTEREST IN MENTAL DEFICIENCY

INTEREST IN MENTAL DEFICIENCY

1805- Jean Etienne Esquirol, French Physician

•   Favorite student of Philippe Pinel- founder of Psychiatry.

•   He was responsible for the manuscript on mental retardation.
  He differentiated mental illness (insanity) from mental retardation.

•   He is the pioneer in training mentally retarded persons.

•   He rejected the notion of incurable MR.

• In 1837 he opened the first school devoted in teaching MR children.

•   In 1886 he conducted experiments with physiological training of
  MR which lead to the nonverbal tests of intelligence. (Seguin
  Form Board)

1912- Emil Kraeplin

•   He devised a series of examinations for evaluating emotionally impaired people.

•   the progression of mental illness could be predicted, after taking into account individual differences in personality and patient age at the onset of disease.

INTELLIGENCE TESTING

INTELLIGENCE TESTING

Alfred Binet

•   The French ministers of public instruction appointed a commission to study the ways of identifying intellectually subnormal individuals.

•   He created the first intelligence test: Binet-Simon Scale of 1905.

Binet-Simon Scale of 1905

•   Contained 30 items of increasing difficulty

•   It was designed to identify intellectually subnormal individuals.

•   In 1916 Lewis Madison Terman and Standford Colleagues revise
  Binet's test for use in the US.

•   Introduction of the term IQ. Mental Age/Chronological Age=|Q

World War I-Robert Yerkes

• There was a need for a large-scale group administered ability tests by the army.

    Army Alpha- required reading ability

    Army Beta-did not require reading ability.

Testing Frenzy of the 1930s

•   1937 revision of the Stanford-Binet includes over 3000 individuals in standardization.

•   1939 Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Scale.

David Wechsler

• Subscales were "adopted" from the Army Scales

•   Produces several scores of intellectual ability rather than Binet's single scores (e.g. Verbal, Performance, Full-Scale)

•   It evolved into the Weschler Series of Intelligence test (WAIS, WISC, etc.)

PERSONALITY TESTING

• These tests were intended to measure personality traits.

Trait- relatively enduring dispositions (tendencies to act, think or feel in a certain manner in any given circumstance).

FIRST RISE AND FALL: STRUCTURED TESTS

•   Woodworth Personal Data Sheet

•   This was the first objective personality test meant to assist in psychiatric interviews.

•   It was designed to screen soldiers unfit for duty.

•   It mistakenly assumed that a subject's response could be taken at face value.

SLOW RISE: PROJECTIVE TESTS

•   Rorschach inkblot test

•   It was constructed by Herman Rorschach inkblot test (1921)

•   It was introduced to the US by David Levy.

•   Thematic Apperception Test

•   It was constructed by Henry Murray and Christina
  Morgan (1935)

•   It is composed of ambiguous pictures that were considerably more structured than the Rorschach.

•   Subjects are shown the pictures and asked to write a story.

SECOND COMING OF THE STRUCTURED TEST

•   Early 1940s-Structured Tests were being developed based on better psychometric properties.

•   Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI 1934) developed by clinical psychologist Starke R. Hathaway and neuropsychiatrist J. Charley McKinley at the University of Minnesota.

•   The meaning of the test response could only be determined by empirical research

•   Most widely used (MMPI-2, MMPI-A)

16 Personality Factor Questionnaire

•   Raymond B. Cattell (early 1940s)

•   The test was based on Factor Analysis - method for finding the minimum number of dimensions (factors) for explaining the largest number of variables.

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