Chapter 2: Historical, Cultural, and Legal/Ethical Considerations Flashcards
It is believed that tests and testing programs first came into being in ______ b.c.e. Testing was instituted as a means of selecting who, of many applicants, would obtain government jobs.
China as early as 2200
During the _____ dynasty, emphasis was placed on knowledge of classical literature. Testtakers who demonstrated their command of the classics were perceived as having acquired the wisdom of the past; they were therefore entitled to a government position.
Song
In 1859, a book was published entitled _____ by Charles Darwin. In this important, far-reaching work, Darwin argued that chance variation in species would be selected or rejected by nature according to adaptivity and survival value
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
Indeed, Darwin’s writing on individual differences kindled interest in research on heredity in his half cousin, _____. In the course of his efforts to explore and quantify individual differences between people, _____ became an extremely influential contributor to the field of measurement
Francis Galton
Galton aspired to classify people “according to their _____” and to ascertain their “deviation from an average”.
natural gifts
Along the way, Galton would be credited with devising or contributing to the development of many contemporary tools of psychological assessment including _____.
questionnaires, rating scales, and self-report inventories
Galton’s initial work on heredity was done with _____, in part because there tended to be fewer variations among the peas in a single pod. In this work, Galton pioneered the use of a statistical concept central to psychological experimentation and testing: the coefficient of correlation.
sweet peas
Galton pioneered the use of a statistical concept central to psychological experimentation and testing: the _____.
coefficient of correlation
Although _____ developed the product-moment correlation technique, its roots can be traced directly to the work of Galton.
Karl Pearson
Assessment was also an important activity at the first experimental psychology laboratory, founded at the University of Leipzig in Germany by _____, a medical doctor whose title at the university was professor of philosophy.
Wilhelm Max Wundt
In contrast to _____, Wundt focused on questions relating to how people were similar, not different. In fact, individual differences were viewed by Wundt as a frustrating source of error in experimentation.
Galton
In spite of the prevailing research focus on people’s similarities, one of Wundt’s students at Leipzig, an American named _____, completed a doctoral dissertation that dealt with individual differences—specifically, individual differences in reaction time.
James McKeen Cattell
_____ is credited with originating the concept of test reliability as well as building the mathematical framework for the statistical technique of factor analysis.
Spearman
_____ is the Frenchman who would collaborate with Alfred Binet on papers suggesting how mental tests could be used to measure higher mental processes.
Victor Henri
Psychiatrist _____ was an early experimenter with the word association technique as a formal test.
Emil Kraepelin
_____ received his Ph.D. from Leipzig and went on to succeed Cattell as director of the psychology laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania.
_____ has been cited as the “little-known founder of clinical psychology”, owing at least in part to his being challenged to treat a “chronic bad speller” in March of 1896.
Later that year, _____ founded the first psychological clinic in the United States at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1907, Witmer founded the journal Psychological Clinic. The first article in that journal was entitled “Clinical Psychology”.
Lightner Witmer
The Twentieth Century:
As early as 1895, Alfred Binet and his colleague Victor Henri published several articles for the measurement of abilities such as _____ and social comprehension.
memory
The measurement of intelligence:
10 years later, Binet and Theodore Simon published a 30-item “measuring scale of intelligence” designed to help identify mentally retarded _____ schoolchildren.
Paris
The measurement of intelligence:
In 1939, _____, a clinical psychologist at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, introduced a test designed to measure adult intelligence.
For Wechsler, intelligence was “the aggregate or global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with his environment”.
David Wechsler
The measurement of intelligence:
Originally christened the Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Scale, the test was subsequently revised and renamed the _____.
Revised uli pambata gang senior high
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
The measurement of intelligence:
A natural outgrowth of the individually administered intelligence test devised by _____ was the group intelligence test.
Group intelligence, USA, Military, WW1.
Binet
The measurement of personality:
_____ had brought with it not only the need to screen the intellectual functioning of recruits but also the need to screen for recruits’ general adjustment.
World War I
The measurement of personality:
A government Committee on Emotional Fitness chaired by psychologist _____ was assigned the task of developing a measure of adjustment and emotional stability.
The committee developed several experimental versions of what were, in essence, paper-and-pencil psychiatric interviews. To disguise the true purpose of one such test, the questionnaire was labeled as a “Personal Data Sheet.”
Robert S. Woodworth
The measurement of personality:
After the war, Woodworth developed a personality test for civilian use that was based on the Personal Data Sheet. He called it the _____. This instrument was the first widely used self-report test of personality—a method of assessment that would soon be employed in a long line of succeeding personality tests.
Woodworth Psychoneurotic Inventory
The measurement of personality:
A _____ is one in which an individual is assumed to “project” onto some ambiguous stimulus his or her own unique needs, fears, hopes, and motivation. The ambiguous stimulus might be an inkblot, a drawing, a photograph, or something else.
projective test
_____ may be defined as “the socially transmitted behavior patterns, beliefs, and products of work of a particular population, community, or group of people”.
Culture
Level A: 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: 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: 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).
Test-user qualifications
Specifically, these difficulties may include:
(1) transforming the test into a form that can be taken by the testtaker,
(2) transforming the responses of the testtaker so that they are scorable, and
(3) meaningfully interpreting the test data.
Testing people with disabilities
Computerized test administration, scoring, and interpretation:
For assessment professionals, some major issues with regard to Computer-assisted psychological assessment (CAPA) are as follows (4)
- Access to test administration, scoring, and interpretation software - easily copied duplicated
- Comparability of pencil-and-paper and computerized versions of tests - kulang sa research
- The value of computerized test interpretations - interpretation integrity
- Unprofessional, unregulated “psychological testing” online - contribute to more public skepticism about psychological tests?
The Rights of Testtakers
1) The right of informed consent
2) The right to be informed of test findings
3) The right to privacy and confidentiality
4) The right to the least stigmatizing label
Consent must be in written rather than oral form. The written form should specify (1) the general purpose of the testing, (2) the specific reason it is being undertaken in the present case, and (3) the general type of instruments to be administered.
If a testtaker is incapable of providing an informed consent to testing, such consent may be obtained from a parent or a legal representative.
APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct provides that psychologists (a) do not use deception unless it is absolutely necessary, (b) do not use deception at all if it will cause participants emotional distress, and (c) fully debrief participants
The right of informed consent
Tell testtakers as little as possible about the nature of their performance on a particular test or test battery.
This orientation was reflected in at least one authoritative text that advised testers to keep information about test results superficial and focus only on “positive” findings.
But all that has changed, and 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.
Testtakers have a right to be informed, in language they can understand.
The right to be informed of test findings
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”.
Confidentiality may be distinguished from privilege in that, whereas “confidentiality concerns matters of communication outside the courtroom, privilege protects clients from disclosure in judicial proceedings”.
Privilege in the psychologist-client relationship belongs to the client, not the psychologist.
If these data are stored in a filing cabinet then the cabinet should be locked and preferably made of steel.
If these data are stored in a computer, electronic safeguards must be taken to ensure only authorized access.
The right to privacy and confidentiality
The Standards advise that the least stigmatizing labels should always be assigned when reporting test results.
The right to the least stigmatizing label
