Psychological Testing and Assessment Notes

Introduction to Psychological Testing and Assessment

Testing and Assessment - Initial Questions

  • In what setting/s have you experienced testing or assessment?

  • What was the purpose of the testing or assessment?

  • How do you describe the experience?

Psychological Test Definition

  • A measurement tool or technique that requires a person to perform one or more behaviors in order to make inferences about human attributes, traits, characteristics, or predict future outcomes.

Distinguishing Between Testing and Assessment

  • Psychological assessment:

    • The gathering and integration of psychology-related data for the purpose of making a psychological evaluation.

    • Accomplished through the use of tools such as tests, interviews, case studies, behavioral observation, and specially designed apparatuses and measurement procedures.

  • Psychological Testing:

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

Testing vs. Assessment: Objectives

  • Testing:

    • Objective: To obtain some gauge, usually numerical, regarding an ability or attribute.

  • Assessment:

    • Objective: To answer a referral question, solve a problem, or arrive at a decision through the use of tools of evaluation.

Testing vs. Assessment: Process

  • Testing:

    • May be individual or group in nature.

    • Tester typically adds up "the number of correct answers or the number of certain types of responses . . . with little if any regard for the how or mechanics of such content"

  • Assessment:

    • Typically individualized.

    • Focuses on how an individual processes information rather than simply the results of that processing.

Testing vs. Assessment: Evaluator Skill

  • Testing:

    • Requires technician-like skills in terms of administering and scoring a test, as well as interpreting a test result.

  • Assessment:

    • Requires an educated selection of tools of evaluation, skill in evaluation, and thoughtful organization and integration of data.

Testing vs. Assessment: Outcome

  • Testing:

    • Typically yields a test score or series of test scores.

  • Assessment:

    • Entails a logical problem-solving approach that brings to bear many sources of data designed to shed light on a referral question.

Types of Assessment

  • Collaborative Psychological Assessment

    • The assessor and assessee may work as “partners” from initial contact through final feedback.

  • Therapeutic Psychological Assessment

    • Therapeutic self-discovery and new understandings are encouraged throughout the assessment process.

  • Dynamic Assessment

    • An interactive approach to psychological assessment that usually follows a model of (1) evaluation, (2) intervention of some sort, and (3) evaluation.

    • Typically employed in educational settings, as well as in correctional, corporate, neuropsychological, clinical settings.

Psychological Testing: Types of Tests

  • Psychological testing refers to all the possible uses, applications, and underlying concepts of psychological and educational tests.

  • The main use of these tests is to evaluate individual differences or variations among individuals.

  • Such tests measure individual differences in ability and personality and assume that the differences shown on the test reflect actual differences among individuals.

Types of Tests:

  • Individual tests

    • Tests that can be given to only one person at a time.

  • Group test

    • can be administered to more than one person at a time by a single examiner

Types of Tests Based on Behavior Measured

I. Ability tests

  • Measure skills in terms of speed, accuracy, or both.

    • A. Achievement: Measures previous learning.

    • B. Aptitude: Measures potential for acquiring a specific skill.

    • C. Intelligence: Measures potential to solve problems, adapt to changing circumstances, and profit from experience.

  • Types of items for ability tests

    • Free response items

    • Multiple-choice items

Types of Tests: Power vs. Speeded

  • Power test

    • Imposes few if any time limits

    • The difficulty of items is what allows these tests to distinguish between people

  • Speeded test

    • Items are relatively easier and test takers can score 100% if given unlimited time, which distinguishes it from a power test.

    • Key question: “How many items can be answered in a given time?”

    • Heavily influenced by strategies and motivation.

Types of Tests: Adaptive Testing

  • Adaptive test

    • Administered by a computer program which monitors each person’s performance and continually estimates their ability

    • Initially given moderate items given randomly

    • Difficulty of next item depends on the person’s performance

    • People are given different sets of items

    • As these items vary in difficulty, they cannot be scored by simply adding up the number of correct items.

Types of Tests: Personality Tests

II. Personality tests:

  • Measure typical behavior—traits, temperaments, and dispositions.

    • A. Structured (objective): Provides a self-report statement to which the person responds “True” or “False,”“Yes” or “No.”

    • B. Projective: Provides an ambiguous test stimulus; response requirements are unclear.

Types of Tests: Structured Personality Tests

  • Personality tests are related to the overt and covert dispositions of the individual.

  • Structured personality tests

    • provide a statement, usually of the “self-report” variety, and require the subject to choose between two or more alternative responses such as “True” or “False”

Types of Tests: Projective Personality Tests

  • Projective personality test

    • In which either the stimulus (test materials) or the required response— or both—are ambiguous.

    • For example, in the highly controversial Rorschach test, the stimulus is an inkblot.

The Tools of Psychological Assessment

  • Psychological test

    • A device or procedure designed to measure variables related to psychology (for example, intelligence, personality, aptitude, interests, attitudes, and values) (Cohen, 2005).

    • a systematic procedure for obtaining samples of behavior, relevant to cognitive or affective functioning, and for scoring and evaluating those samples according to standards (Urbina, 2004)

  • Psychological Construct

    • An underlying unobservable personal attribute, trait or characteristic of an individual that is thought to be important in describing or understanding human behavior.

  • Behavior – an observable measurable action.

  • Inference – means using evidence to reach a conclusion.

Test Format

  • Test format

    • The form, plan, structure, arrangement, and layout of test items as well as to related considerations such as time limits.

    • Also used to refer to the form in which a test is administered: computerized, pencil-and-paper, or some other form.

Scoring, Cut Scores, and Psychometrics

  • Scoring is the process of assigning such evaluative codes or statements to performance on tests, tasks, interviews, or other behavior samples.

  • A cut score (or simply a cutoff) is a reference point, usually numerical, derived by judgment and used to divide a set of data into two or more classifications.

  • Psychometrics may be defined as the science of psychological measurement.

  • Psychometric soundness of a test refers to how consistently and how accurately a psychological test measures what it purports to measure.

  • Psychometric utility refers to the usefulness or practical value that a test or assessment technique has for a particular purpose.

The Interview

  • The Interview

    • A method of gathering information through direct communication involving reciprocal exchange.

    • May differ in purpose, length, nature

    • May be used by psychologists in various specialty areas to help make diagnostic, treatment, selection, or other decisions.

  • Panel Interview (board interview)

    • A presumed advantage of this approach is that any idiosyncratic biases of a lone interviewer will be minimized by the use of two or more interviewers (Dipboye, 1992). A disadvantage of the panel interview relates to its utility; the cost of using multiple interviewers

The Portfolio

  • The Portfolio

    • constitutes work products—whether retained on paper, canvas, film, video, audio, or some other medium.

    • As samples of one’s ability and accomplishment, a portfolio may be used as a tool of evaluation, e.g., writing, painting.

Case History Data

  • Case History Data

    • records, transcripts, and other accounts in written, pictorial, or other form that preserve archival information, official and informal accounts, and other data and items relevant to an assessee.

    • may include files or excerpts from files maintained at institutions and agencies such as schools, hospitals, employers, religious institutions, and criminal justice agencies

    • Includes are letters and written correspondence, photos and family albums, etc.

  • Case History or Case Study

    • concerns the assembly of case history data into an illustrative account.

    • For example, a case study of a successful world leader, an individual who assassinated a high-ranking political figure , on groupthink

Behavioral Observation

  • Behavioral Observation

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

    • Often used as a diagnostic aid in various settings such as inpatient facilities, behavioral research laboratories, and classrooms, as well as for selection purposes in corporate settings.

  • Naturalistic Observation

    • Observing behavior in a natural setting—that is, the setting in which the behavior would typically be expected to occur.

Role Play

  • Role play

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

  • Role-play Test

    • A tool of assessment wherein assessees are directed to act as if they were in a particular situation. Assessees may then be evaluated with regard to their expressed thoughts, behaviors, abilities, and other variables.

    • useful in evaluating various skills

    • Clinicians may attempt to obtain a baseline measure of abuse, cravings, or coping skills through role play

Computers as Tools

  • Computers as Tools

    • more obvious role as a tool of assessment is their role in test administration, scoring, and interpretation

  • Extended Scoring Report

    • includes statistical analyses of the testtaker’s performance.

  • Interpretive report

    • distinguished by its inclusion of numerical or narrative interpretive statements in the report.

  • Consultative Report

    • This type of report, usually written in language appropriate for communication between assessment professionals, may provide expert opinion concerning analysis of the data.

  • Integrative report

    • Designed to integrate data from sources other than the test itself (medication records or behavioral observation data ) into the interpretive report.

CAPA and CAT

  • CAPA (Computer Assisted Psychological Assessment)

    • “assisted” refers to the assistance computers provide to the test user, not the testtaker.

  • CAT (Computer Adaptive Testing)

    • The adaptive in this term is a reference to the computer’s ability to tailor the test to the testtaker’s ability or testtaking pattern.

Users of Tests

  • Test developer

    • APA has estimated that more than 20,000 new psychological tests are developed each year.

  • Test taker

    • Even a deceased individual can be considered an assessee.

  • Psychological Autopsy

    • a reconstruction of a deceased individual’s psychological profile on the basis of archival records, artifacts, and interviews previously conducted with the deceased assessee or with people who knew him or her.

  • Should observers be parties to the assessment process?

Applications of Assessment: Settings

  • Educational settings

  • Clinical settings

  • Counseling settings

  • Geriatric settings

  • Business and military settings

  • Governmental and organizational credentialing

  • Other settings

Applications of Assessment: Specifics

Educational settings

  • School ability tests

  • Achievement tests

  • Diagnostic tests

  • Informal evaluation

Clinical settings

  • To determine maladjustment

  • Effectiveness of psychotherapy

  • Learning difficulties

  • Expert witnessing

  • Forensic settings (prisons)

Counseling settings

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

  • Measures of social and academic skills and measures of personality, interest, attitudes, and values

Geriatric settings

  • In the US, more than 12 million adults are currently in the age range of 75 to 84.

  • At issue in many such assessments is the extent to which assessees are enjoying as good a quality of life as possible

Business and military settings

  • Recruitment

  • Promotion

  • Transfer

  • Job satisfaction

  • Performance

  • Product design

  • Marketing

Governmental and organizational credentialing

  • Governmental licensing, certification, or general credentialing of professionals

Other settings

  • Program evaluation

  • Health Psychology

Assessment of People with Disabilities

  • Accommodation

    • The 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 a 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(s).