History Of Psych Testing Flashcards
Psychometrics
Concerned with the theory and technique of psychological measurement, which includes the measurement of:
Knowledge
Abilities
Attitudes
Personality Traits
Factor Analysis
Exploratory
Confirmatory
Historical Context: Chinese
2200 BCE
Used essay exams for Civil Service employees
Historical Context:
Plato
(428-327 BCE) noted:
Greeks assessed intellectual and physical ability of men when screening for state service
Historical Context: Esquirol
(1830’s)
Used Language Ability to identify Intelligence
Continuum: “idiocy” to low grade “normals”
Forerunner of verbal intelligence testing
Historical Context: Seguin
(1800’s)
Postulated that the Prognosis of Intellectual Deficits in Children was Worse if Deficits We’re Associated with Physiological Problems
Developed Foam Board
Forerunner of Performance Intelligence testing
Darwin
(Mid 1800’s)
Theory of Evolution: Scientific Method
Set tone for others who followed
Galton
(Mid to late 1800’s & Darwin’s cousin)
English biologist studied relationship of sensory motor activities to Intelligence
Instrumental in developing correlation coefficient
Wundt
(1879)
Founded 1st Psycholgical Lab
Studied reaction time by looking at sensitivity to visual, auditory and other sensory stimuli and reaction time
History of Psychometrics
Psychophysics
Juncture between physics and psychology involving the linkages between the physical properties of stimuli and how they are perceived by humans
History of Psychometrics
Stanley S. Stevens
Credited with classifying scales of measurement
History of Psychometrics
Louis L. Thurstone
developed the mathematical foundations for factor analysis
History of Psychometrics
Other who made significant contributions to psychometrics
Charles Spearman
Karl Pearson
Georg Rasch
History of Psychometrics
Understanding uniqueness of humans
James Cattell
(Late 1800’s)
Psychologist
Phrased term “mental test”
Used statistical concepts to understand differences
History of Psychometrics
Understanding uniqueness of humans
G. S. Hall
(Late 1800’s)
Experimental lab at Johns Hopkins
Mentor to Many
First president of APA
Emergence of Ability Tests
(Testing in the Cognitive Domain)
Three Areas:
Individual Intelligence Testing
Neuropsychological Assessment
Group Tests of Ability
Emergence of Ability Tests
(Testing in the Cognitive Domain)
Individual Intelligence Testing
Binet
(1890’s)
Hired by French Ministry of Public Education to integrate “sub-normal” children into the schools
Developed first modern-day Intelligence Test
Emergence of Ability Tests
(Testing in the Cognitive Domain)
Individual Intelligence Testing
Terman (at Stanford)
Revised Binet scale—Stanford-Binet
I.Q. = MA/CA
Emergence of Ability Tests
(Testing in the Cognitive Domain)
Neurological Assessment
Head injuries: 5K-yr-old Egyptian medical documents
WWI: Increased interest in brain injuries
20th century: development of brain imaging techniques
Today: suspected changes in brain function yields neuropsychological assessment
Group Testing
Group Testing
WWI: Army Alpha and Army Beta
Developed by Yerkes, Terman, and others to place recruits in the military
Group Testing
Eugenics & the Testing Mvmnt
Army Alpha was used to provide support for the Eugenics Mvmnt
Belief in Selective Breeding to Improve the Human Race
Group Testing
Edward Thorndike
1923
Stanford Achievement Test
Group Testing
Frank Parsons
(Early 1900’s)
Leader in Vocational Counseling
Multiple Aptitude Tests (Group Tests of Ability Focused on Job Attainment)
Emergence of Personality Tests
Tests in the Affective Realm
Interest Inventories and Vocational Assessment
Objective Personality Assessment
Projective Testing
Emergence of Personality Tests
(Tests in the Affective Realm
Interest Inventories and Vocational Assessment
(Early 1900’s)
Thorndike and Miner: Early Assessors of Interests
Emergence of Personality Tests
(Tests in the Affective Realm
Strong
(1927)
Strong Vocational Interest Blank
Emergence of Personality Tests
(Tests in the Affective Realm
Objective Personality Assessment
Kraeplin
(1892)
Word association test to study schizophrenia
Emergence of Personality Tests
(Tests in the Affective Realm
Objective Personality Assessment
Wood worth’s Personal Data Sheet
WWI
Commonly credited as the first personality test
Crude test to access for neuroses and pathology
Forerunner to the MMPI
Emergence of Personality Tests
(Tests in the Affective Realm
Objective Personality Assessment
Projective Testing
Carl Jung’s Word Association Tests
1904
156 Stimulus words to which individuals would respond—-to detect “complexes”
Emergence of Personality Tests
(Tests in the Affective Realm
Objective Personality Assessment
Projective Testing
Herman Rorschach
(Early 1900’s)
Ink blot Test
Emergence of Personality Tests
(Tests in the Affective Realm
Objective Personality Assessment
Projective Testing
Henry Murray’s Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
View a number of standard pictures and create a story that explains the situation
Emergence of Informal Assessment Procedures
20th Century
Situational Tests: “contrived naturalistic situations”
Clinical Interview
DSM-5 (DSM-1 developed in 1952)
Observation
Rating Scales
Classification Techniques
Records and Personal Documents
Environmental Assessment
Performance-based Assessment
Ability Assessment Graph
See Class 1, Slide 27
Graph of Personality Assessment
See Class 1, Slide 28
Graph of Informal Assessment
See Class 1, Slide 29
Questions to consider when assessing clients:
How valid is the information gained from assessment instruments and how should that information be applied?
TBD
Questions to consider when assessing clients:
How do assessment instruments invade an individual’s privacy and does the government have, at times, the right to insist an individual be assessed?
TBD
Questions to consider when assessing clients:
Can the use of assessment instruments, in some cases, lead to labeling and what are the implications for the individuals who are “labeled?”
TBD
Questions to consider when assessing clients:
Are assessment procedures used to foster equality for ALL people, or do they tend to create a society based on class?
TBD
Validity of a Test
The extent to which it measures what it claims to measure
Three types of Validity Evidence
Content Valididty
Criterion-Referenced
Construct Valididty
Content Valididty
Is determined by the degree to which the questions, tasks, or items on a test are representative of the universe of behavior the test was designed to sample.
If the sample (specific items on the test) is representative of the population (all possible items), then the test possesses content validity.
Criterion-related validity
Is demonstrated when a test is shown to be effective in estimating an examinee’s performance on some outcome measure.
The variable of primary interest is the outcome measure called CRITERION
Two different approaches to validity evidence are subsumed inter the heading of criterion-related validity
Concurrent Validity
Predictive Validity
Concurrent Validity
The criterion measures are obtained at at approximately the same time as the test scores
Predictive Validity
The criterion measures are obtained in the future
