Psychological Test

• a standardized procedure for sampling and describing behavior and unobservable psychological atttributes

• must have these defining features

  • standardized procedure

  • behavior sample

  • scores or categories

  • norms or standards

  • prediction of non-test behavior

Distinctions in Testing

• Norm-Reference Tests: compare individual’s test with a group

• Criterion-Reference Tests: evaluated based on a certain standard

Assessment

• a process of appraising or estimating the magnitude of one or more attributes in a person

• involves observations, interviews, checklists, inventories, projective techniques, and other psychological tests

• an evaluation of an individual

Types of Tests

• Intelligence or Mental Ability Test

  • measured objectives of intelligence tests (general ability tests) are designed to provide an estimation of a person’s probable intellectual behavior; his innate potentials

  • 2 Types of Forms

    • Verbal Test: question and answer

    • Nonverbal Test: choose to fit the pattern

  • Ex. mental age, IQ, EQ

• Achievement Test

  • designed to measure the outcome of the instructional program and what a student has already learned in a particular subject area/s

  • measure what actual learning is rather than potential for learning

  • learned knowledge

• Aptitude Test

  • attempt to measure an individual’s potentialities for future development and learning among individuals along certain lines or specific areas

• Personality Test

  • not really tests at all, but rather attempt to inventory an individual’s feelings about himself and other people

  • measures used to account for behavioral phenomena by identifying the number of consistent patterns of traits

• Interest Inventories

  • measure of a person’s preferences, his likes and dislikes at a given time, which may be influenced by his environment, his experience and perhaps his innate tendencies

  • a method designed to provide an individual with forced choices that he will like or dislike

• Performance vs Pencil-and-Paper Tests

  • Performance Test

    • a test in which the examinee is required to manipulate objects or perform a task

  • Pencil-and-Paper Test

    • a test which represents questions or items to which a person responds by writing or marking answers

    • for economy and convenience of storing, separate answer sheets are often used

• Objective vs Subjective Tests

  • Objective Test

    • require the person scoring the test to exercise little, or if any, judgment

    • An answer key is prepared when the test is constructed so as that no matter how many persons grade the test, the one who tool the test will receive the same numerical score for each item.

  • Subjective Test

    • require the scorer to use considerable judgment and training in evaluating the examinee’s responses

• Standardized vs Teacher-Made Tests

  • Standardized Test

    • administered and scored according to specific instructions for uniformity

    • Norms: available for standard interpretation of scores

  • Teacher-Made Test

    • constructed by the teacher for the purpose of an informal evaluation of her classroom teaching

• Speed vs Power Tests

  • Speed Test

    • required the examinee to complete as many test items or complete some tasks as possible in a specified time limit

  • Power Test

    • require the examinee to demonstrate the extent of his knowledge or depth of his understanding with the time factor eliminated as much as possible

• Group vs Individual Tests

  • Group Test

    • tests designed to be administered to a group of examinees at a time; saves time, money, and effort

  • Individual Test

    • tests designed to be administered to one person at a time

    • allows the tester to observe carefully the examinee’s behavior

Uses of Tests

• Classification: placement, screening and certification

• diagnosis and treatment planning

• self-knowledge

• program evaluation

• research

History of Psychological Tests

China 2200 BCE

• Testing was instituted as a means of selecting who, of many applicants, would obtain government jobs

• Those who passed the examination were entitled to wear special garb; this entitled them to be accorded special courtesies by anyone they happened to meet, exemption from taxes, exempt one from government-sponsored interrogation by torture is the individual was suspected of committing a crime.

Greco-Roman Writing

• indicative of attempts to categorize people in terms of personality type

  • reference to an overabundance or deficiency in some bodily fluid (e.g., blood and phlegm) as a factor believed to influence personality

Christian Von Wolff 18th Century

• anticipated psychology as a science and psychological measurement as a specialty within that science

Charles Darwin 1859

• published “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection”

• argued that chance variation in species would be selected or rejected by nature according to adaptivity and survival value

• argued that humans had descended from the ape as a result of such chance genetic variations

Francis Galton

• aspired to classify people “according to their natural gifts” and to ascertain their “deviation from an average”

• credited with devising or contributing to the development of many contemporary tools of psychological assessment including questionnaires, rating scales, and self-report inventories

• pioneered the use of a statistical concept central to psychological experimentation and testing the coefficient of correlation

• excited widespread interest in the measurement of psychology-related variables

Wilhelm Wundt

• first experimental psychology laboratory

• tried to formulate a general description of human abilities with respect to variables such as reaction time , perception, and attention span

• focused on questions relating to how people were similar

James McKeen Cattell

• coined the term mental test

• instrumental in founding the Psychological Corporation, which named 20 of the country’s leading psychologists as its directors

  • Goal: “advancement of psychology and the promotion of the useful applications of psychology

20th Century

The Measurement of Intelligence

• Alfred Binet

  • 1905, Binet and Theodore Simon published a 30-item “measuring scale of intelligence” designed to help identify mentally retarded Paris schoolchildren

  • within a decade, an English-language version of Binet’s test was prepared for use in schools in the US

  • The Binet-Simon Scale (1905)

  • Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales (with Louis Terman)

• David Wechsler

  • Wechsler Intelligence Scale (1930s)

  • introduced a test designed to measure adult intelligence

  • intelligence was “the aggregate or global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with his environment

The Measurement of Personality

• Robert S. Woodworth

  • Personality Testing (1918)

  • developed a personality test for civilian use that was based on the Personal Data Sheet called Woodworth Psychometric Inventory

  • Self-Report Test: a method of assessment that would soon be employed in a long line of succeeding personality tests

• Hermann Rorschach

  • Rorschach Inkblot Test (1920s)

  • Projective Test: an individual is assumed to “project” onto some ambiguous stimulus his/her own unique needs, fears, hopes, and motivation

The Academic and Applied Traditions

• College Admission Tests (1920s)

• Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI, 1940s)

• Army Alpha and Beta tests

• WWI in 1917 military needed a way to screen large numbers of recruits quickly for intellectual and emotional porblems

• WWII: the military would depend even more on psychological tests to screen recruits for service

• After WWII, more and more tests purporting to measure an ever-widening array of psychological variables were developed and used

  • There were tests to measure not only intelligence but also personality, aspects of brain functioning, performance at work, and many other types of psychological and social functioning

21th Century Testing

• an explosion of psychological and educational tests

• Mental Measurements Yearbook

  • 600 Personality Tests

  • 400 Intelligence and Aptitude tests

Why should we know how to create tests when we can have others to do it?

• People are not very good at judging other people objectively, and most “non-test” assessment procedures involves subjective judgment

• Patients are notoriously poor historians and may present biased information

• Many psychological tests are designed to assess a large number of characteristics or traits, and as a result they may help ensure that important clinical issues are not overlooked

• Psychological tests typically provide quantitative information that allows more precise measurement of important characteristics

• The process and content of clinical interviews and observations, helps ensure that multiple sources of data are included