PSYASS - MIDTERM PERIOD (COMPILATION)

Testing

Used to refer to the administration of a psychological test to the interpretation of a test score.

Assessment

Acknowledges that testing is only one type of tool used by the professional.

Psychological Assessment

The gathering and integration of psychological/psychology related data for the purpose of making psychological evaluation that is accomplished through the use of tools such as tests, interviews, case studies, behavioral observation, and specially designed apparatuses and measurement procedures.

Process of Assessment

• Referral for assessment

• Selecting appropriate tools or tests

• Assessment

• Writing a report designed to answer the referral question at hand

Collaborative Psychological Assessment

The assessor and assessee working together from the start to finish.

Therapeutic Psychological Assessment

Therapeutic self-discovery and new understandings are encouraged and may include an element of therapy.

Dynamic Assessment

1. Evaluation

2. Intervention

3. Evaluation

Psychological Test

A device or procedure used to measure psychological construct.

Score

Code or a summary statement

Scoring

Assigning evaluative codes or statements to behavior, tasks, interviews, etc.

Cut score

• A reference point usually numerical

• Divides the set of data into two or more classifications

• No clear definition of how it should be

Psychometrics

The science of psychological measurement

Psychometrician

Psychological test users

Interview

A method of gathering information through direct communication involving reciprocal exchange. Also taking note of not only what was being said, but how it was said.

Portfolio

A work product, whether retained on paper, canvas, film, video, audio or some other medium.

Case history data

Records, transcripts, and other accounts in written, pictorial, or other form that preserve archival information.

Observation

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

Naturalistic observation

Observation in a natural environment.

Role-play tests

Acting an improvised or partially improvised part in a simulated situation.

Role-play tests

A tool of assessment wherein assessees are directed to act as if they were in particular situation.

Computer as tools

May help in the measurement of variables that in the past were quite difficult to quantify.

Educational setting

TYPE OF SETTINGS WHERE ASSESSMENTS ARE CONDUCTED

• Help children to be identified if they have special needs

• School ability tests

• Achievement tests

Clinical setting

TYPE OF SETTINGS WHERE ASSESSMENTS ARE CONDUCTED

• Public, private, or military hospitals

• Screen and diagnose behavior problems

• Provide non-obvious clues

• Evaluating a child with learning difficulties

• Efficacy of a certain psychotherapy method

• Malingering issues

• Defendant competencies

• Prisoner's rehabilitation

• Maybe intelligence tests, personality tests, neuropsychology tests, or other specialized instruments

Counselling setting

TYPE OF SETTINGS WHERE ASSESSMENTS ARE CONDUCTED

• Improvement of the assessee in terms of adjustment, productivity, or some related variable

• MEASURES THAT CAN BE ADMINISTERED

  • Social and academic skills

  • Personality

  • Interest

  • Attitudes

  • Values

Geriatric setting

TYPE OF SETTINGS WHERE ASSESSMENTS ARE CONDUCTED

• To evaluate cognitive, psychological, adaptive, or other functioning of old individuals also in hospitalization or hospice care

• Assessing the "good quality of life"

Business and Military setting

TYPE OF SETTINGS WHERE ASSESSMENTS ARE CONDUCTED

• Used in decision making about the careers of personnel

• Achievement, aptitude, interest, motivational, and other tests for decision making in hiring

• Engineering and design of products and environments

• Involved in taking the pulse of consumers. Predicting reciprocity to a new product

Governmental and Organizational Credentialing

TYPE OF SETTINGS WHERE ASSESSMENTS ARE CONDUCTED

• Governmental licensing

• Certification

• General credentialing of professionals

• Board certifications

Other setting

TYPE OF SETTINGS WHERE ASSESSMENTS ARE CONDUCTED

• Courts

• "Testimonies"

• Program evaluations

• Health psychology

  • Coping strategies

  • Adjustments

  • Personality

  • Behavior

Accommodation made to the assessee

Adaptation of a test procedure or situation, or the substitution of one test for another, to make the assessment more suitable for an assessee with exceptional needs.

Alternate assessment

An evaluative or diagnostic procedure or process that varies from the usual, customary or standardized way of measurement is derived either by virtue of some special accommodation made to the assessee or by means of alternative methods designed to measure the same variable.

Tests catalogues

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Test manuals

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Reference volumes

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Journal articles

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Online databases

Enumerate the REFERENCE SOURCES for authoritative information about tests

Francis Galton

• Aspired to classify people "according to their natural gifts"

• Peas

• Coefficient of correlation

• Anthropocentric Records

• Sparked the interest in psych-related variable

Wilhelm Wundt

• First expe psych lab

• How are people similar?

James McKeen Cattel

• Dissertation in individual differences

• "Mental Test"

• Influenced by Galton

Charles Spearman

• Reliability

• Factor analysis

Victor Henri, Alfred Binet

Made papers suggesting how mental tests could be used to measure higher mental processes.

Emil Kraeplin

An early experimenter with word association test.

David Wechsler

• Adult Intelligence (WAIS)

• Binet Developed Group Intelligence Tests (because of the World Wars)

Woodworth

• Developed the Woodworth Psychoneurotic Inventory

• First widely used self-report test of personality

• Respondents may have a poor insight into themselves

• Rise of the projective tests

The 20th Century

The birth of the first formal tests of intelligence.

Measurement of Personality

• The field of psych was too test oriented

• Not only intelligence, but also general adjustment and emotional stability

• "Personal Data Sheet" - probed for the existence of psychopathology

Academic Tradition

Furthering knowledge about human or animal behavior.

Applied Tradition

Administration of competitive civil service exams.

Culture

The socially transmitted behavior patterns, and products of work of particular population, community, or group of people.

Henry H. Goddard

He raised questions about how meaningful such tests are when used with people from various cultural and language backgrounds.

Henry H. Goddard

Found most immigrants from various nationalities to be mentally deficient when tested.

• Verbal communication

• Non-verbal communication and Behavior

• Standards of evaluation

• Tests and Group Memberships

Enumerate some issues regarding culture and assessment (4)

Affirmative action

Refers to voluntary and mandatory efforts undertaken by federal, state, and local governments, private employers, and schools to combat discrimination and to promote equal opportunity for all in education and employment.

Laws

Rules that individuals must obey for the good of the society as a whole—or rules thought to be for the good of society as a whole.

Ethics

A body of principles of right, proper, or good conduct.

Code of professional ethics

Recognized and accepted by members of a profession, it defines the standard of care expected of members of that profession.

Standard of care

The level at which the average, reasonable, and prudent professional would provide diagnostic or therapeutic services under the same or similar conditions.

Truth-in-testing legislation

The primary objective of these laws was to give test takers a way to learn the criteria by which they are being judged.

Discrimination

May be defined as the practice of making distinctions in hiring, promotion, or other selection decisions that tend to systematically favor members of a majority group regardless of actual qualifications for positions.

Reverse Discrimination

May be defined as the practice of making distinctions in hiring, promotion, or other selection decisions that systematically tend to favor members of a minority group regardless of actual qualifications for positions.

Disparate treatment

Refers to the consequence of an employer’s hiring or promotion practice that was intentionally devised to yield some discriminatory result or outcome.

Disparate impact

Refers to the consequence of an employer’s hiring or promotion practice that unintentionally resulted in a discriminatory result or outcome.

Litigation

Interpretations of existing law in the form of decisions handed down by courts.

Litigation

Sometimes referred to as “judge-made law” because it typically comes in the form of a ruling by a court.

Level A

Test-user qualification:

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

Test-user qualifications:

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 (e.g., aptitude tests and adjustment inventories applicable to normal populations).

Level C

Test-user qualifications:

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).

Testing people with disabilities

1. Transforming the test into a form that can be taken by the test taker,

2. Transforming the responses of the test taker so that they are scorable,

3. Meaningfully interpreting the test data.

The right of informed consent

Test takers have a right to know why they are being evaluated, how the test data will be used, and what (if any) information will be released to whom.

The right to be informed of test findings

Giving realistic information about test performance to examinees is not only ethically and legally mandated but may be useful from a therapeutic perspective as well are being made as a consequence of the test data.

The right to privacy and confidentiality

The concept of the privacy right “recognizes the freedom of the individual to pick and choose for himself the time, circumstances, and particularly the extent to which he wishes to share or withhold from others his attitudes, beliefs, behavior, and opinions.”

The right to the least stigmatizing label

Protect the test taker from any rumors, etc.

Client, Psychologist

Privilege in the psychologist–client relationship belongs to the __________, not the __________.

Assumption 1: Psychological Traits and States Exist

Samples of behavior may be obtained in a number of ways, ranging from direct observation to the analysis of self-report statements or pencil-and-paper test answers.

Trait

Defined as any distinguishable, relatively enduring way in which one individual varies from another.

States

Distinguish one person from another but are relatively less enduring.

Construct

An informed, scientific concept developed or constructed to describe or explain behavior. We can’t see, hear, or touch it, but we can infer their existence from overt behavior.

Assumption 2: Psychological Traits and States Can Be Quantified and Measured

Measuring traits and states by means of a test entail developing not only appropriate test items but also appropriate ways to score the test and interpret the results.

Assumption 3: Test-Related Behavior Predicts Non-Test-Related Behavior

The objective of such tests typically has little to do with predicting future grid-blackening or key-pressing behavior. The tasks in some tests mimic the actual behaviors that the test user is attempting to understand.

Assumption 3: Test-Related Behavior Predicts Non-Test-Related Behavior

The obtained sample of behavior is typically used to make predictions about future behavior, such as work performance of a job applicant.

Assumption 4: Tests and Other Measurement Techniques Have Strengths and Weaknesses

Competent test users understand a great deal about the tests they use. They also understand and appreciate the limitations of the tests they use as well as how those limitations might be compensated for by data from other sources.

Assumption 5: Various Sources of Error Are Part of the Assessment Process

Error traditionally refers to something that is more than expected; it is actually a component of the measurement process.

Error

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

Error variance

The component of a test score attributable to sources other than the trait or ability measured.

Classical Test Theory

The assumption is made that each test taker has a true score on a test that would be obtained but for the action of measurement error.

Assumption 6: Testing and Assessment Can Be Conducted in a Fair and Unbiased Manner

Today all major test publishers strive to develop instruments that are fair when used in strict accordance with guidelines in the test manual.

Assumption 7: Testing and Assessment Benefit Society

A world without tests would most likely be more a nightmare than a dream. In such a world, people could present themselves as surgeons, bridge builders, or airline pilots regardless of their background, ability, or professional credentials.

Good test

The criteria for a _______________ would include clear instructions for administration, scoring, and interpretation. It would also seem to be a plus if a test offered economy in the time and money it took to administer, score, and interpret it.

Reliability

Consistency of the measuring tool

Reliable

In theory, the perfectly __________ measuring tool consistently measures in the same way.

Validity

Measure what it purports to measure

Norm-referenced testing and assessment

A method of evaluation and a way of deriving meaning from test scores by evaluating an individual test taker’s score and comparing it to scores of a group of test takers.

Norms

In a psychometric context, these are the test performance data of a particular group of test takers that are designed for use as a reference when evaluating or interpreting individual test scores.

Normative sample

A group of people whose performance on a particular test is analyzed for reference in evaluating the performance of individual test takers.

Norming

Refer to the process of deriving norms. _______________ may be modified to describe a particular type of norm derivation.

User norms/Program norms

Consist of descriptive statistics based on a group of test takers in a given period of time rather than norms obtained by formal sampling methods.

Test standardization

The process of administering a test to a representative sample of testtakers for the purpose of establishing norms.

Sampling

The process of selecting the portion of the universe deemed to be representative of the whole population.

Sample

A portion of the universe of people deemed to be representative of the whole population.

Stratified sampling

Help prevent sampling bias and ultimately aid in the interpretation of the findings.

Stratified-random sampling

Sampling was random or every member of the population had the same chance of being included in the sample.

Incidental sample/Convenience sample

The researcher employing this type of sample is doing so not as a result of poor judgment but because of budgetary limitations or other constraints.

Purposive sample

Arbitrarily select some sample because we believe it to be representative of the population.

Percentiles

A ranking that conveys information about the relative position of a score within a distribution of scores.

Percentiles

An expression of the percentage of people whose score on a test or measure falls below a particular raw score.