Assessment Notes Flashcards
What are the purposes of assessments?
- Classification/Educational Placement
- Screening
- To inform instruction/intervention
- Progress monitoring
What is the difference between psychological testing and psychological assessment?
Psych testing produces data
Psych assessment gives meaning to the data
Who was the founder of the first experimental psychology lab?
Wilhelm Wundt
What did Jean Esquirol use to distinguish mentally ill patients from those who were not intelligent?
Language abilitlies
What is one major difference between psychology and philosophy?
Psychology attempts to measure things, while philosophy does not.
What did Wilhelm Wundt believe that psychology should focus on?
Consciousness and immediate experience
What concept was introduced by Sir Francis Galton?
Correlation
What is Galton considered the father of?
The psychometric based testing movement.
What sort of things did Wundt focus on measuring?
Physiological item including sensation, attention, reaction time, feelings, emotions
What sort of things did Galton measure?
Sensory and physical skills across multiple generations. Things like height, weight, head size, arm span, vision, audition, motor strengths, reaction time, etc
What was the rationale behind Galton’s measurements?
You learn information through your senses, so sensory and physical skills would reflect mental abilities
What term was coined by James McKeen Catell?
Mental Test
What sort of things did Catell measure?
The body and senses. Things like perception of size, hand strength, eyesight, hearing, sensitivity to pain, head size, color vision, naming colors, sensation areas, color preference, rate of perception/movement, rhythm and perception of time, memory.
What was the purpose of Catell’s measurements?
Catell anticipated using the test as a measurement tool for diagnostic evaluation and selection.
What were some issues with Catell’s test?
- Validity of these tests were limited, did not really measure academic ability
- Wissler, who was a student of Catell, found little correlation between test results and grades of college students
- Test would not be a good way to select students for college admittance
What was Binet’s major contribution to psychological testing?
Binet introduced the first IQ test that was similar to modern testing.
What was Binet’s attitude towards mentally ill patients?
Binet believed in humane treatment for the mentally ill and that the correct diagnosis was the first step towards humane treatment.
Which scale, which is considered the first breakthrough in mental testing, was developed in 1905?
The Binet-Simon Scale
What was one major issue of tests that were developed prior to the Binet-Simon scale?
The tests did not identify the higher-level cognitive abilities that were needed to identify mental illness.
What are some defining features of the Binet-Simon Scale?
- Included careful instruction for administration
- Items on test are ranked in order of difficulty
- Items included following a moving object with one’s eyes, comparing two weights, replying to abstract questions, defining abstract terms, and using three words in a sentence
Stronger validity than Catell/Galton tests
What did Louis Terman contribute to mental testing?
- Revised Binet-Simon Scale to include rigorous standardization procedure and comprehensive examiner’s guide
- Introduced IQ (mental age/chronological age x 100) as a measure
What are some issues with Terman’s concept of IQ?
Not a valid measure. As you age, IQ will decrease.
What test did Robert Yerkes create?
The Army Alpha/Army Beta
What was the purpose of the Army Alpha/Army Beta
Designed to assess soldiers and determine what units they would serve in during WWII
