Module 1 Lesson 5: Major Forces

Question 1

What are the major forces that have shaped the field of testing we know today?

Answer 1

1. The Scientific Impulse
2. Concern for the Individual
3. Practical Applications
4. Statistical Methodology
5. The Rise of Clinical Psychology
6. Computers

Question 2

Why is looking at the major forces of testing a riskier approach than looking at the chronological contributions?

Answer 2

This is a riskier approach than the chronological one because we may overlook a significant trend or misjudge the influence of a force, hence offering easy prey to the critic. It is difficult to overlook a chronological period.

Question 3

How can looking at the major forces be helpful?

Answer 3

However, for providing the new student with insights, this second approach may be more fruitful.

Question 4

What force has prevailed throughout the history of testing?

Answer 4

The Scientific Impulse

Question 5

Whose writings are replete with references to the need to measure scientifically?

Answer 5

The writings of Galton, E. L. Thorndike, Cattell, Binet, and the other founders are replete with references to the need to measure scientifically.

Question 6

What did educators hope for which would make the educational emterprise scientific?

Answer 6

Educators, too, hoped that the development and application of “new‐type” tests would make the educational enterprise scientific.

Question 7

What did Binet and Simon’s 1905 article (its subtitle) refer to?

Answer 7

The subtitle of Binet and Simon’s 1905 article refers to “the necessity of establishing a scientific diagnosis.”

Question 8

Who referred to the following quote: “the necessity of establishing a scientific diagnosis”?

Answer 8

Binet and Simon did in their 1905 article (it was the subtitle of it)

Question 9

What did the opening sentence of Thorndike’s introduction to the theory of mental measurement state?

Answer 9

The opening sentence of Thorndike’s (1904) introduction to the theory of mental measurement states that “experience has sufficiently shown that the facts of human nature can be made the material for quantitative science”

Question 10

Who said the following quote: “experience has sufficiently shown that the facts of human nature can be made the material for quantitative science”?

Answer 10

Thorndike did in the introduction to his 1904 theory of mental measurement.

Question 11

What motivated development of early achievement tests?

Answer 11

This concern for being scientific, along with the concern for scorer reliability, motivated development of early achievement tests.

Question 12

What is the field that proclaimed its allegiance to a scientific approach?

Answer 12

The field of clinical psychology, which we will treat more fully and which has been one of the primary fields of application for testing, has resolutely proclaimed its allegiance to a scientific approach.

Question 13

What model does clinical psychology use?

Answer 13

Clinical psychology has always maintained that it was part science and part practice, utilizing what the field calls the scientist‐practitioner model.

Question 14

Testing has grown around what?

Answer 14

Testing has grown around an intense interest in the individual. This orientation is perhaps inevitable since testing deals with individual differences.

Question 15

What perspective is Concern for the Individual part of?

Answer 15

This is part of the “differential perspective”.

Question 16

All tests related to concern for individuals. True or False.

Answer 16

False. Many, though not all, of the practical applications mentioned later related to concern for individuals.

Question 17

What are examples of tests that have concern for individuals?

Answer 17

Binet’s work aimed to identify individuals who could profit more from special schools than from regular schools. Wechsler’s first test aimed to give a fairer measure of intelligence for adults. The original SATs were intended to eliminate or minimize any disadvantage students from less‐affluent secondary schools might have in entering college. Vocational interest measures aimed to help individualize job selection.

Question 18

What did virtually every major development in testing result from?

Answer 18

Virtually every major development in testing resulted from work on a practical problem.

Question 19

What did Binet try to solve?

Answer 19

Binet tried to solve a practical problem for the Parisian schools.

Question 20

What did Wechsler want?

Answer 20

Wechsler wanted a better test for his adult clinical patients.

Question 21

What did the MMPI aim to do?

Answer 21

The MMPI aimed to help in the diagnosis of patients at one hospital.

Question 22

What did the SAT emerge as?

Answer 22

The SAT emerged as a cooperative venture among colleges to select students from diverse secondary school experiences.

Question 23

Who were prototypes of the first group-administered intelligence tesys and personality inventories developed for?

Answer 23

Prototypes of the first group‐administered intelligence tests and personality inventories developed around the need to process large numbers of military personnel in World War I.

Question 24

What did notable developments result in in some instances?

Answer 24

In some instances, notable developments resulted from theoretical considerations.

Question 25

What is the clear overall pattern of testing?

Answer 25

The overall pattern seems quite clear: Testing has developed in response to practical needs. If you like the applied side of psychology, you should like the field of testing.

Question 26

The development of testing has an interactive relationship with what?

Answer 26

The development of testing has an intriguing interactive relationship with the development of statistical methodology.

Question 27

What is an example that shows the relationship between testing and statistics?

Answer 27

The first example was the display of bivariate data, invented by Galton. To further this work, Galton induced the English mathematician Karl Pearson to create the correlation coefficient. Spearman then spun off his rank‐order version of the correlation.More important, in crafting his theory of intelligence, Spearman worked out the method of tetrad difference, the conceptual grandparent of modern factor analysis. The great leap forward in factor analysis came with Thurstone’s work on primary mental abilities. Many of the further elaborations of factor analysis resulted from the continuing Spearman–Thurstone war of words and data over the fundamental nature of intelligence, an active battlefield to this day. Thus, the history of testing has gone hand‐in‐glove with the history of at least certain statistical methods.

Question 28

Testing and statistics only has a one-way relationship. True or False.

Answer 28

One ordinarily thinks of this as a one‐way street: Testing borrows methods from statistics. However, a number of statistical methods were invented specifically in response to developments in testing. The methods were then widely adopted in other fields.

Question 29

What is clinical psychology as a major force?

Answer 29

Clinical psychology is one of the major areas of application for testing. In turn, clinical psychology is one of the major areas of the application of psychology. This is particularly true if we construe the term clinical broadly to include counseling psychology, school psychology, and the applied side of neuropsychology. On the one hand, persons in clinical practice have needed, pressed for, and helped to create a plethora of tests. On the other hand, as new tests have arisen, those in clinical practice have utilized them.

Question 30

What does the early history of clinical psychology involve?

Answer 30

The early history of clinical psychology reads much like the early history of testing: the Binet, the Rorschach, and so on. As new tests came along, clinicians used them. In many instances, it was clinicians who developed the tests.

Question 31

Where did clinical psychologists participate actively in back then?

Answer 31

Clinical psychologists participated actively in the military during World War I and World War II.

Question 32

What happened in the field of clinical psychologt after WWII?

Answer 32

Following World War II, the federal government invested heavily in the training of clinical psychologists.

Question 33

What did government investment in clinical psychology lead to?

Answer 33

Government investment led to explosive growth of the profession. With that growth came growth in the use of tests and the need for newer tests. This reciprocal relationship continues today.

Question 34

What field leads the world of testing?

Answer 34

In terms of absolute numbers of tests used, the field of education leads the world of testing.

Question 35

What field has the dizzying array of various types of tests?

Answer 35

In terms of the dizzying array of various types of tests available today, the clinical field (broadly conceived) has been most influential.

Question 36

What is the most recent major field in testing?

Answer 36

Computers

Question 37

When was the electronic computer invented and made available?

Answer 37

The electronic computer was invented in 1946 and became commercially available in 1951.

Question 38

When did mainframe computer become widespread in use?

Answer 38

Mainframe computers were not in widespread use until the 1960s.

Question 39

When did desktop models appear?

Answer 39

Desktop models first appeared around 1980 and proliferated beginning in the mid‐1980s.

Question 40

What is a scanner?

Answer 40

A scanner is an electrical or electronic device that counts marks on a test answer sheet. The machine is sometimes called a mark‐sense scanner or reader.

Question 41

Answer sheets are put into a computer. True or False.

Answer 41

Despite popular reference to “computer answer sheets,” answer sheets are not put into a computer. They are put into a scanner (see example in Figure 1.7). The output from the scanner may (or may not) be input to a computer.

Question 42

Will answer sheets and scanners become tomorrow’s dinosaurs?

Answer 42

Quite possibly. We are already seeing examinees input answers directly to a computer from a keyboard. Furthermore, with improvements in voice recognition, answers to test questions (delivered, for example, over phone lines) can now be spoken. The spoken words are decoded and scored by comparison with acceptable answer templates. No doubt, additional technological wonders lie just ahead.

Question 43

Examinees input answers directly to a computer from the keyboard in what places?

Answer 43

This is being done in classrooms, clinics, human resource offices, and even in centers located in malls.

Question 44

What’s important to know about the computer phases?

Answer 44

There is a historical sequence to these aspects, but they differ more in character than in temporal order. Moreover, although there is a historical sequence, it is cumulative. That is, once a phase was entered, it stayed with the field. A new phase added to rather than replaced the earlier phase.

Question 45

When did the first phase of computers begin?

Answer 45

This phase began almost as soon as computers became commercially available.

Question 46

What was the first phase of the history of computers in testing?

Answer 46

Statistical Processing. This was a tremendous boon to testing, since it allowed for much larger research programs and routine use of sophisticated methodology. This type of development continues apace today.

Question 47

What do desktop computers allow researchers to do?

Answer 47

Desktop computers permit nearly every researcher to perform analyses in mere seconds that in the past would have required entire teams of researchers months to perform.

Question 48

What did computers do in the second phase of the computer-testing relationship?

Answer 48

In the second phase of the computer–testing relationship, computers prepared reports of test scores.

Question 49

What did the score reporting phase begin with?

Answer 49

This began with very simple reports, particularly useful for large‐scale testing programs. A computer program would determine raw scores (e.g., number of right answers) using input from a scanner, convert raw scores into normed scores, and print out lists of examinee names and scores.

Question 50

When did computer-printed reports become in widespread use?

Answer 50

Computer‐printed reports of this type came into widespread use in the early 1960s.

Question 51

By today’s standards, would the computers of the second phase in computer-testing history still be impressive? Why or why not?

Answer 51

By today’s standards, such reports were primitive: they featured all capital letters, all the same size type, carbon paper copies, and so on. At the time, they were wonders.

Question 52

What happened in the later stages of the second phase and what did test developers gain?

Answer 52

The later stages of this phase evolved naturally from the earlier, simple reports. Test developers gained expertise in programming skill. They also saw the creative possibilities of computer‐based reports.

Question 53

What happened to the computer-testing relationship in the 1970s?

Answer 53

By the early 1970s, we began to see a profusion of ever more elaborate computer‐generated reports. Printer capabilities also exploded. Graphic displays and variations in type style now accompanied numerical information, the staple of earlier reports.

Question 54

What was the most major development in the second phase of the computer-testing relationship?

Answer 54

A major development in this phase was the preparation of interpretive reports.

Question 55

What did interpretive reports show?

Answer 55

Reports of test performance were no longer confined to numbers. Performance might now be described with simple words or even continuous narrative, as if written by a professional psychologist.

Question 56

How many types of test administration by computer are there?

Answer 56

From the test developer’s perspective, there are two distinctly different types of test administration by computer.

Question 57

What might the examinee not notice (computers as a major force)?

Answer 57

The examinee may not be aware of the difference between the two types of test administratiom by computer.

Question 58

What is the first type of computer-based test administration?

Answer 58

The first type, computer‐based test administration, simply presents on a computer screen (the video monitor) the test questions very much as they appear in a printed booklet. Just put the test questions in a text file and have them pop up on the screen. The examinee inputs an answer on the keyboard. Nothing very exciting here, but it is paperless.

Question 59

What is the second-type of computer test administration?

Answer 59

The second type, computer‐adaptive testing, is revolutionary. Here, the computer not only presents the items but also selects the next item based on the examinee’s previous responses. This is one of the most rapidly growing areas of testing today.

Question 60

What has become common in the recent past of computer-testing history?

Answer 60

In the recent past, the online completion of tests has become common.

Question 61

What is becoming standard in the vocational interest assessment?

Answer 61

In one field, vocational interest assessment, online completion of inventories and reporting of scores are becoming standard.

Question 62

What is the main issue in the 3rd phase of computer applications?

Answer 62

The main issue here is not so much the completion of the test but the delivery of test information (reports—many quite elaborate) to individuals without any training in interpreting that information and possibly without ready access to professional advice.

Question 63

What has psychology always emphasized?

Answer 63

Psychology has always emphasized the need for appropriate training in the interpretation of test information.

Question 64

What is automated scoring?

Answer 64

This means a computer program has been developed to simulate human judgment in the scoring of such products as essays, architectural plans, and medical diagnoses.

Question 65

What is the final method for introducing the world of testing?

Answer 65

The final method for introducing the world of testing is by way of definition.