Psychological Tests: What Are They and Why Do We Need Them? Flashcards
Why do we have psychological tests
- classification
- diagnosis and treatment planning
- self knowledge
- program evaluation
- research
psychological test
- an OBJECTIVE procedure for sampling and quantifying human behaviour
- TO MAKE inferences about a particular psychological construct or constructs
- USING standardised stimuli and methods of administration and scoring
History of psychological testing
China (Han Dynasty – 206 B.C.E to 200 C.E)
o batteries for a range of issues
o jobs within the public office and used until the early years of the twentieth century
History of psychological testing
Britain (early 19th century)
o Class distinctions = inheritance of intelligence linked to inheritance of social position
o incongruent with the major scientific drive at the time.
TWO METHODS WERE DEVELOPED IN OPPOSITION TO THIS BELIEF SYSTEM;
o Experimental: Used the scientific method to quantify psychological phenomena.
o Observational: Originally hypothesised by Darwin and then applied specifically to human behaviour by Sir Francis Galton
France (late 19th century) MERITOCRACY
o An individual’s worth is determined by their ability and merit
o developed categories in community; Determined who should be leading and who should be under-classed
Binet
- children who would benefit from special education through intelligence test. –> the first of the modern intelligence tests
performance on a range of different problems can be aggregated to yield an overall estimate of, in his terms, mental age
mental age;
child’s standing among children of different chronological ages in terms of his or her cognitive capacity.
stanford-binet test
Binet’s test assimilated in the cultural milieu
Standford-binet (Lewis Terman) dominated intelligence tests for individuals aged from 3 years to 16 years –> until David Wechsler
Practical performance test
- Binet’s test led to a demand in practical or performance tests of ability that did not depend on verbal skills or exposure to mainstream formal schooling.
- Stanley Porteus –> mazes for assessing comprehension and foresight – forerunner for tests that weren’t just dependent on English and verbal
WW1 and screening
Clarence Yoakum and Robert Yerkes and colleagues developed two group tests of general mental ability for recruiting US armed services during the First World War.
The Army Alpha test
assessing the ability levels of those who could read and write
The Army Beta test
those who were not literate.
Wechsler intelligence test (contemporary)
- adopted basic structure of WW1 and developed the Verbal and Performance subscales for his test of adult intelligence.
- Non-verbal scales (reasoning and matrix manipulation and much more visual constructs)
- Multiple facets of IQ
- overall assessment of intellectual level and diagnosing ( psychiatric settings)
superior to the Stanford-Binet.
o content more age appropriate
o replaced mental age scoring method with the Deviation IQ method,
WW1 and Robert Woodworth
- first self-report personality test.
- screening for psychological adjustment to military situation
o short questions identified from psychiatry textbooks and other expert sources.
o military psychiatrist (starting being led by a specialist)
o a forerunner for personality tests
Minnesota Multiphasic personality inventory (MMPI) - Starke Hathaway and John McKinley
o discriminate between those without symptoms of mental illness (‘normals’) and patient groups with particular diagnoses.
o 566 items, heterogeneous in content, and sophisticated
o four validity scales for the purpose of identifying various forms of untruthful responding by the test taker that could invalidate inferences drawn from the content scales
mental test
o a supplement to the unaided diagnostic ability of the doctor or psychiatrist.
o ‘objective’, –> method of scoring is sufficiently straightforward for two or more scorers of the same test performance to agree closely on the final score.
Projective tests
- required judgment in their scoring.
- psychodynamic theorising -> the operation of unconscious motivational effects – freud
Hermann Rorschach test
a series of blots gave rise to meaningless designs that the patient was asked to make sense of.
projective hypothesis
test takers draw on own psychic resources and thus demonstrate something of the workings of their mind.
-spurred more tests
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
Henry Murray Christiana Morgan,
- second most widely used projective technique after the Rorschach.
- describing ambiguous scenes.
- Used in WW2
- business organisations for the selection and promotion of senior executives and used in organisational psychology
Personality tests
o measure behaviour rather than ability
- Measured traits
o Structured
o MMPI (much more scientific and objective)
o Psychometrically sound – Factor analysis
‘Assessment
high-level reasoning process involved in the application of psychological procedures to the individual case, and henceforth almost completely replaced the term ‘mental testing’.
Bias and Misuse (eugenics)
Galton
- improving human species through selective parenthood
Goodard
o Culturally biased version of the Stanford-Binet Scale to screen immigrants – “feebleminded” people should be sterilised or institutionalised
o Ideas adopted by Nazi Germany
Jensen
- 60s and 70s – Genetic basis for IQ Psychological testing can be very powerful.
test - objective
- Gauge an individual’s ability
- Score and categorised
Example: child behavioural problems testing will measure a child’s behaviour
assessment- objective
- Answer a referral question
- Solve a problem
- Uses multiple tools of evaluation
Example- childhood behavioural problems
- Will ascertain a diagnosis through;
- Interviews
- Rating behaviour
- Observations
- Measuring cognitive ability
- Examine history and social factors
test- process
Administer and score in accordance to specific rules (manual for use)
Example: vocational testing
- Testing will administer a score and a measure
assessment - process
Consider processes beyond the score and how individuals got a score
Example: vocational testing
- Assessment will select tests (or part of tests) with consideration of individual factors
- Interview
- Rating behaviour
- Observations
- Measuring cognitive ability
- Examine history and social factors
test - evaluator role
Should have no influence
Example clinical testing:
- Testing; administer a standardised depression inventory
assessment- evaluator role
- Key to process
- Selection of tools and formulation of conclusions
Example: clinical testing Assessment: formulates a diagnosis base on - Interview - Observing behaviour/ presentation - Measuring behaviour - Examining history and social factors
test- outcome
The final score
Example Geriatric testing
- Testing- indicates level of functioning
assessment - outcome
Answer to referral question
Example Geriatric testing
Assessment- decision regarding ability to live independently or requirement of assisted living
7 assumptions of psychological assessment and testing
1) Psychological traits and states exist
2) Psychological traits and states can be quantified and measured
3) Test-related behaviour predicts non-test-related behaviour
4) Tests and other measurement techniques have strengths and weaknesses
5) Various sources of error are part of the measurement process
6) Testing can be conducted in a fair and unbiased manner
7) Testing/assessment benefits society
Obsolescence test
the notion that a psychological test loses its utility because the theory that it was based on has been shown to be wrong, or because the content of its items is no longer appropriate because of social or cultural change
Psychometric properties:
the criteria that a psychological test has to fulfil in order to be useful; they include how accurate and reproducible the test scores are, and how well the test measures what it intends to measure
a criterion-referenced test,
a standard of performance is determined in advance by some empirical method, and the test taker’s performance is compared with this standard in determining whether they pass or fail.
not compared to others just the standard
driving test or exam
norm reference test
performance of the individual is related to the performance of a group of individuals similar to the test taker in important respects (e.g. age, gender, educational level and cultural background). How well or badly a person has performed is thus assessed against what the average person can do, or what the norm is.
-norm-referenced test: a psychological test that uses the performance of a representative group of people (i.e. the norm) on the test for evaluating the performance of a test taker
self report tests
- psychological test that requires test takers to report their behaviour or experience;
- administered individually or in a group
- take less time to complete and can be given multiple people at once
- interest is in typical behaviour—what the person frequently does, as in the case of personality and attitude.
- M test
performance tests
o performance test: a psychological test that requires test takers to respond by answering questions or solving problems;
- usually administered individually
- provide information about what the person can actually do as to what they say they can do.
o assessing the limits of what a person can do, such as in assessing their aptitudes or abilities.
a. The WAIS-IV
number of individuals who can be administered the tests
o WAIS–IV (Wechsler) can only be administered to one person face-to-face,
o Raven’s Progressive Matrices - administered individually or to a group.
o individually administered tests allow psychologists to observe the performance of the person tested and to follow up and clarify the answers if needed.
