Psych Tests Exam 1

What is the difference between Testing and Assessment

Testing: More specific; Measuring psychologically related variables

—> more individual

—> Specific problems and answers

Assessment: More general; Gathering and integrating psychologically related data for psychological evaluation

—> Often more complex problems

—> Larger problem to solve

—> Broadly testing people among multiple domains of functioning

When would you use testing?

For a quick, specific measurement; yields a test score

When would you use an assessment

More in-depth evaluation is needed when integrating many sources of data to shed light on a question or a problem.

What is an example of a test

IQ test

What is an example of an assessment

A full clinical intake evaluation for a new patient, a comprehensive psychoeducational evaluation for a student.

What do we mean when we say “dynamic” testing

Evaluate, intervene (make a change), then did that change produce a change

What is a collaborative assessment?

The assessor and assessee work as partners

What is a Therapeutic Psychological Assessment?

Therapeutic self-discovery is encouraged through the assessment process

Can you be therapeutic if not collaborative

NO

If it's not collaborative, it cannot be therapeutic

What are the different types of measurement techniques?

1. Interview

2. Portfolio

3. Case Study

4. Behavioral Observation

5. Computer-Assisted Psychological Assessment (CAPA)

What are the typical settings in which psychological testing is applied?

• Clinical 

• Educational

• Industrial/Organizational

• Social (Military, police officer, etc)

What is meant by the term psychometrics?

• The science of psychological measurement

  • Why should I care about your tool? How good is it?

When would you use an interview in psychological testing?

You would use an interview to gather qualitative data, personal history, and contextual information that can't be captured by a standardized test. It's essential for building rapport and understanding the individual's unique situation.

IT IS A TEST, and part of an assessment

What is an interview?

1. Direct communication involving a reciprocal exchange 

2. Attends verbal and nonverbal information

What are some factors that contribute to the quality of the information gathered by the interviewer?

skills of the interviewer (ex: their pacing, rapport, and their ability to convey genuineness, empathy, and humor)

What are advantages of Computer Testing

1. Faster 

2. More accesable 

3. Reaches wider audience 

4. Removal of bias 

What are disadvantages for Computer Testing

1. Missing nonverbal interactive components/lack human emotion

2. People trust people more than computers

3. Changes approach test taker has (less personal; not thinking as deeply about the questions) 

4. Security concerns 

What’s the difference between information gathering vs. therapeutic assessment

Information gathering: Collect info, establish a benchmark, importance of feedback is minimized, benefits come after the process, nomothetic, scores and recommendations

Therapeutic: Self-discovery, transformation, emphasis on feedback, nomothetic and ideographic, process and broader lens

Ideographic

-Specific

-To understand the traits of a single individual with all of their quirks, idiosyncrasies, and chanracteristics that make them unique

Nomothetic

-General

-To discover Universals (concepts that can apply to everyone) by identifying traits that can describe all people or that can be applied to any person

Who was Wundt? What did he do

• German physician whose experimental psychology lab interested in similarities 

(Think of William Wundt, two W’s, meaning similar)

Who was Galton? What did he do?

Extremely influential in the measurement of individual differences

Who was James McKeen Cattell (1888)

• American psychologist coined the term “mental test” and launched intelligence tests in its modern form

  • MODERN form of intelligence testing 

(think modern, with middle name starts w m)

Who was Binet? What did he do?

French psychologist; Developed the first intelligence tests for children 

Who created the first intelligence test and why

binet,  It was created to identify Parisian school children who needed special educational assistance.

Why did psychological tests begin in the first place?

WWI and WWII screening for intellectual ability in new military recruits 

Advantages of using self-report measures

• Cheap

• Understandable 

  -Can be administered to large groups

Disadvantages of using self-report measures

• Lack of self-bias 

• May not be a good reflection of actual behavior.

• The test-taker may lack self-awareness.

What are projective tests

Projective tests are a type of personality test in which a person is presented with an ambiguous stimulus and asked to describe what they see or what comes to mind.

What is the influence of culture in psychological testing/What is the influence of culture on the application and interpretation of tests?

• Culture can influence a test-taker's performance, motivation, and understanding of test items. A test developed in one culture may not be valid or reliable when used in another.

Influence of culture in psychological testing: Communication - verbal and non-verbal; high-context vs low-context cultures

Verbal: There may not be an equivalent word or phrase

• Even if there are equivalent words, the meaning may be different

• Terms may be specific to the field of psychology and may require an interpreter with specialized training

• Dialect differences 

Non-verbal: Interpretation and meaning of non-verbal signs or body language can vary

High context: Rely heavily on nonverbal cues, shared understanding, and the surrounding context (e.g., Japan).

(think of when your high, your non-verbal)

Low context: : Rely on explicit verbal communication to convey meaning (e.g., United States). Differences in communication styles can impact test administration and rapport.

• Individualistic: Prioritize individual goals, autonomy, and self-reliance.

• Collectivistic: Emphasize group harmony, cooperation, and the needs of the community. These values can influence a person's motivation and performance on a test.

What are the different sources of error and bias in testing?

• Sources of error: Test construction (poorly worded questions), administration (distractions, examiner bias), scoring (human error), and interpretation.

What is test-related discrimination

• Test-related discrimination: Occurs when a test or its results are used in a way that unfairly penalizes individuals from a particular group, often based on race, gender, or culture.

What is equality vs. equity in testing

Equality: Treating everyone the same regardless of their background or needs

Equity: Recognizing different individuals have different needs and providing them with the necessary support or accommodations to ensure a fair opportunity to succeed.

What is the importance of testing in public policy and federal legislation

Tests are used to make critical decisions about people's lives (e.g., college admission, employment, legal competency). Legislation is in place to ensure tests are used fairly, validly, and without bias.

What is the Daubert ruling?

1. A U.S. Supreme Court case that established a new standard for the admissibility of expert scientific testimony in federal courts. It requires a judge to act as a gatekeeper, evaluating whether the scientific evidence is based on scientifically valid principles.

What is the Frye standard?

1. The previous standard for admitting expert testimony. It required that the scientific evidence be "generally accepted" by the relevant scientific community.

****general acceptence****

Name four key test-taker rights and ethical considerations in testing

1. Informed consent

2. Right to test findings

3. Confidentiality

4. The right to be tested with tests that are appropriate for their background and needs.

What are the different scales of measurement and differences between them?

• Nominal: Categorical data with no order (e.g., gender, eye color).

• Ordinal: Data with a rank order, but no equal intervals between them (e.g., a race finishing order).

• Interval: Data with equal intervals but no true zero point (e.g., Celsius temperature).

• Ratio: Data with equal intervals and a true zero point (e.g., height, weight).

Most psychological tests tend to be ______, but we often treat them as _______

ordinal, interval

Be able to describe the measures of central tendency and variability; how might they be
used to understand the distribution of the data?

1. Mean: Average

2. Median: Middle

3. Mode: Most frequent

1. Range: The difference between the highest and lowest scores

2. IQR: Difference between third and first quartiles

3. Standard deviation: A measure of the average distance of scores from the mean

4. Variance: The standard deviation squared

Skewness vs. Kurtosis

1. Skewness: The asymmetry of the distribution

2. Kurtosis: The peakedness or flatness of the distribution

o Positive vs. Negative skew, what do they look like and what do these shapes of
the distribution says about the data

• Positive Skew: The tail points to the right. The mean is greater than the median. This suggests a few very high scores pulling the average up.

• Negative Skew: The tail points to the left. The mean is less than the median. This suggests a few very low scores pulling the average down.

Smaller SD= less ___

variance

Platykuric

Relatively flat

Leptokurtic

Relatively peaked

Mesokurtic

Somewhere in the middle

Characteristics of a normal curve

• Bell-shaped and symmetrical.

  • Easy to interpret data

What percent of the scores fall between one standard deviation above and below the mean?

• Approximately 68%.

Two standard deviations above and below?

• Approximately 95%.

If you were given the observed score, the mean and the standard deviation, could you determine what percentile the person scored assuming a normal distribution?

Yes. You would first calculate the z-score using the formula: z=(X−μ)/σ. Then, you would use a z-table to find the percentage of scores below that z-score, which corresponds to the percentile.

Raw scores vs. standardized scores

• Raw score: A score that has not been converted to any other scale.

• Standardized score: A score converted to a common scale that allows for comparison across different tests (e.g., z-scores, T-scores).

What are standard scores good for?

• They allow for meaningful comparisons between different tests and with a specific norm group.

• Comparing between individuals

• Comparing across studies

• When measures are in a different metric

• Highly skewed data

What are some standardization techniques?

Z-scores, T-scores, stanine scores, and percentiles.

Positive vs. negative correlations

-Positive: Indicates that as one variable increases or decreases, the other variable aflows a suit

-Negative: Indicate that as one variable increases, the other decreases

Strong vs. weak correlations

The closer the correlation coefficient is to +1 or -1, the stronger the relationship. The closer it is to 0, the weaker the relationship

What happens to the correlation when you have a restricted range of scores

Correlation gets weaker

What is correlation and how is it interpreted?

• A statistical measure that describes the strength and direction of a linear relationship between two variables.

• Positive vs negative correlation: The sign (+/-) indicates the direction of the relationship.

  • Magnitude versus direction of the correlation: The number (from 0 to 1) indicates the strength. A correlation of +0.80 is stronger than a correlation of +0.30.

What is meta-analysis, and why is it useful? How do you interpret an effect size?

• A family of techniques to statistically combine information across studies to produce single estimates of the data under study 

• Use:  It can resolve conflicts between studies and provide a more robust estimate of a relationship.

• The estimates are in the form of an effect size, which is often expressed as a correlation coefficient

  • Can tell you how strong a relationshio is, on average, across all the studies reviewed

Psychological testing assumptions

1. Psychological traits and states exist.

2. Psychological traits and states can be measured.

3. Test-related behavior predicts non-test-related behavior.

4. Tests have strengths and weaknesses.

5. Various sources of error are part of the assessment process.

6. Testing and assessment can be conducted in a fair and unbiased manner.

7. Testing and assessment benefit society.

Traits vs. States

Traits: Relatively enduring characteristics that define an individual’s typical behavior

States: Temporary, transient characteristics of an individual (mood, anxiety at a specfiic momemt)

What is construct?

A construct is a scientific concept or idea developed to describe or explain behavior. Constructs are not directly observable (e.g., intelligence, anxiety, motivation). They are inferred from observable behavior.

What is error and what are potential sources of it?

• refers to a long-standing assumption that factors other than what a test attempts to measure will influence performance on the test

Sources

• The assessor 

• Time of day

• Environmental controls 

• Mood

• How you interpret the items 

What is reliability vs validity

Reliability

• The consistency of the measuring tool: the precision with which the test measures and the extent to which error is present in measurements

  Validity

• The test measures what it is intending to measure

What is the relationship vs reliability and validity

• A test must be reliable to be valid, but a reliable test is not necessarily valid.

What are norms, and why are they important?

• Norms: The test performance data of a particular group of test-takers that are used as a reference point for interpreting an individual's score.

Why they are important: They allow for a meaningful comparison of a person's score to a larger, representative group.

What do we mean when we refer to the “standardization sample"?” Describe the standardization process of a test

• Sampling that includes different subgroups, or strata, from the population 

• Sampling-test developers select a population, for which the test is intended, that has at least one common, observable characteristic\

1. Develop a set of items and procedures.

2. Administer the test to a large, representative sample (the standardization sample).

3. Analyze the data to establish norms (e.g., mean, standard deviation).

4. Create a standardized manual that outlines the procedures for administration, scoring, and interpretation.

Describe a stratified sampling method. As well as stratified random sampling

• Stratified sampling: A sampling method where the population is divided into subgroups (strata) based on a characteristic (e.g., age, race, gender). A sample is then drawn from each subgroup in proportion to its representation in the population.

Stratified random sampling: A more rigorous form where a random sample is drawn from each of the pre-defined strata.

-Every member of the population has an equal opportunity of being included in a sample 

• Very unlikely type of sampling

• People aspire to do this, but it is difficult to do

Norm-referenced vs. criterion-referenced interpretation

• Norm-referenced: A score is interpreted by comparing it to the performance of a norm group. (e.g., "Your score is in the 75th percentile, which is higher than 75% of your peers.")

Criterion-referenced: A score is interpreted by comparing it to a set standard or criterion. (e.g., "You answered 90% of the questions correctly, which means you have passed the test.")

What are some cultural considerations in test construction/standardization

• Language: Test items should be translated accurately and be culturally relevant.

• Content: Items should not contain cultural biases or rely on knowledge that is not universal.

• Norms: The standardization sample should include individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds to ensure the norms are appropriate.