Psychological Test

Types, Application, Uses,

Ethical Issues and Limitations
Types of Test
 Types of Test

Types
of
Test
Mode of Rate of According Behavioura
administrat Performanc to medium l dimension
ion e used measured

Paper and Performanc

Individual Group Speed Test Power test Ability Personality Interest Attitude
pencil e

Achieveme
Intelligence Aptitude Creativity
nt
 Types of Psychological Test
• Tests can be broadly grouped into two categories
• Group tests are largely pencil-and-paper measures suitable to
the testing of large groups of persons at the same time.
• Individual tests are instruments that by their design and
purpose must be administered one on one.
• An important advantage of individual tests is that the examiner
can gauge the level of motivation of the subject and assess the
relevance of other factors (e.g., impulsiveness or anxiety) on the
test results.
 For convenience, we will sort tests into the eight
categories
1.Intelligence Tests**
2.Aptitude Tests
3.Achievement Tests
4.Creativity Tests
5.Personality Tests**
6.Interest inventories
7.Behavioural Procedures
8.Neuropsychological Tests
 1. Intelligence tests
• Designed to estimate the individual’s general intellectual level.
• Measure an individual's ability in relatively global areas such as verbal
comprehension, perceptual organization, or reasoning
• It helps in determining potential for scholastic work or certain occupations.
• The Binet-Simon scales were successful, in part, because they incorporated
heterogeneous tasks, including word definitions, memory for designs,
comprehension questions, and spatial visualization tasks.
• The group intelligence tests that blossomed with such profusion during and after
WWII also tested diverse abilities—witness the Army Alpha with its eight different
sections measuring practical judgment, information, arithmetic, and reasoning,
among other skills.
 IQ test and Culture bias
• Special challenges await the psychologist who wants to assess intelligence in non-
Western cultures.
• Traditional intelligence tests such as the WAIS and the Stanford-Binet draw heavily
on the cognitive skills and learning that are needed to succeed in Western educational
and occupational settings.
• They tend to have strong verbal content and to rely on the products of Western
schooling.
• Taken into a cultural context where smart is defined in different ways and requires
other kinds of adaptive behavior, such tests cannot hope to measure intelligence in a
valid fashion.
• For example, the WAIS does not measure the ability to create herbal medicines,
construct shelters, or navigate in the open sea.
 Cultural bias
• Robert Sternberg (2004) has advanced a theory of successful intelligence in which
intelligence is whatever is required to meet the adaptive demands of a given culture.
• Sternberg believes that fundamental mental skills are required for successful
behaviour in any culture.
• These include the ability
• to mentally represent problems in a way that facilitates their solution,
• to develop potential solutions and
• to choose successfully among them,
• to utilize mental resources wisely, and
• to evaluate the effects of one’s action plans.
• People from different cultures may think about the same problem in very different ways (Nisbett, 2003).
• e.g Which one of the five is least like the other four
• DOG-CAR-CAT-BIRD-FISH
• Two main approaches have been taken to meet the challenges of cross-cultural intelligence assessment.
• One is to choose reasoning problems that are not tied to the knowledge base of any culture but that
reflect the ability to process and evaluate stimulus patterns.
• Eg the Raven Progressive Matrices, a nonverbal task test that is frequently used to measure fluid
intelligence (Raven, 1962).
• The Raven test has been used in many cultures and measures a general mental capacity.
• Scores on the Raven correlate positively with measures of IQ derived from traditional tests, yet they seem
to be more “culture fair.”
RPM
 2. Aptitude tests
• Aptitude tests measure one or more clearly defined and relatively homogeneous
segments of ability.
• Such tests come in two varieties
• A single aptitude test appraises, obviously, only one ability, whereas
• A multiple aptitude test battery provides a profile of scores for a number of aptitudes.
• Used to predict success in an occupation, training course, or educational endeavour.
• For example, the Seashore Measures of Musical Talents (Seashore, 1938), a series of tests
covering pitch, loudness, rhythm, time, timbre, and tonal memory, used to identify
children with potential talent in music.
• Specialized aptitude tests also exist for the assessment of clerical skills, mechanical
abilities, manual dexterity, and artistic ability.
• The most common use of aptitude tests is to determine college admissions.
• Most every college student is familiar with the SAT (Scholastic Assessment Test,
previously called the Scholastic Aptitude Test) of the College Entrance Examination
Board.
• This test contains
• A verbal section stressing word knowledge and reading comprehension;
• A Mathematics section stressing algebra, geometry, and insightful reasoning; and
• A Writing section stressing writing skill
• In effect, certain minimum scores on the SAT are using the test to predict academic
success.
 Achievement tests
• Assess a person’s degree of learning, success, or accomplishment in a subject
matter.
• The implicit assumption of most achievement tests is that the schools have
taught the subject matter directly.
• The purpose of the test is then to determine how much of the material the
subject has absorbed or mastered.
• Achievement tests commonly have several subtests, such as reading,
mathematics, language, science, and social studies.
• The distinction between aptitude and achievement tests is more a
matter of use than content (Gregory, 1994a).
• Any test can be an aptitude test to the extent that it helps predict
future performance.
• Any test can be an achievement test insofar as it reflects how
much the subject has learned.
• On occasion, one instrument may serve both purposes, acting as
an aptitude test to forecast future performance and an
achievement test to monitor past learning.
 Creativity tests

• Assess a subject’s ability to produce new ideas,

insights, or artistic creations that are accepted as
being of social, aesthetic, or scientific value.
• It emphasizes novelty and originality in the
solution or the production of artistic works.
• A creative response to one problem can be
illustrated in Figure
• Without lifting the pencil, draw through all the dots
with as few straight lines as possible.
• In the 1960s, they were publicized as a useful alternative to
intelligence tests and used widely in U.S. school systems.
• Educators were especially impressed that creativity tests required
• Divergent thinking—putting forth a variety of answers to a
complex or fuzzy problem—
• As opposed to
• Convergent thinking— finding the single correct solution to a
well-defined problem.
 Interest inventories
• Assess an individual’s preference or interest in different field of
work
• emphasis on expanding career options and occupational choice.
• also predict job satisfaction
• eg Strong interest inventory- not only assess job activities, but
also to school subjects, hobbies, sports, types of play or books
the individual enjoyed, social relations, and many other facets of
everyday life.
 Behavioural procedures
• Many kinds of behavioural procedures are available for assessing
the antecedents and consequences of behaviour, including
checklists, rating scales, interviews, and structured observations.
• Based on an assumption that behaviour is understood in terms of
clearly defined characteristics such as frequency, duration,
antecedents, and consequences.
• (E.g Study on anger in a child)
• Behavioural procedures tend to be highly pragmatic in that they are
usually interwoven with treatment approaches.
 Neuropsychological tests
• Neuropsychology is the study of brain–behaviour relationships.
• Neuropsychological testing assesses a wide range of mental
functions, including behaviour, to see how well your brain works
• Neuropsychological tests are used in the assessment of
persons with known or suspected brain dysfunction.
• Measure cognitive, sensory, perceptual, and motor performance
to determine the extent, locus, and behavioral consequences of
brain damage.
• Neuropsychologists have discovered that certain tests and
procedures are highly sensitive to the effects of brain
damage.
• A full neuropsychological assessment typically requires
three to eight hours of one-on-one testing with an
extensive battery of measures.
• Examiners must undergo comprehensive advanced
training in order to make sense out of the resulting mass of
test data.
 Assessment of Personality

• If you were to be introduced to Jenny, a woman you had

never met before, and given one week to provide a
complete personality description of her, what would
you do?
 Techniques of Personality
Assessment

Structure
Behaviora d
Remote
Interview l Personalit Projective
behavior
s Assessme y Tests
Sampling
nt Inventorie
s
 Personality scales
• Objective measures -standard sets of questions, usually in a true-false or rating-scale format,
that are scored using an agreed on scoring key (Nezami & Butcher, 2000).
• Their advantages include
• (1) the ability to collect data from many people at the same time,
• (2) the fact that all people respond to the same items, and
• (3) ease of scoring
• Their major disadvantage is the possibility that some people will choose not to answer the
items truthfully, in which case their scores will not be valid reflections of the trait being
measured.
• To combat this threat to validity, some widely used tests have special validity scales that
detect tendencies to respond in a socially desirable manner or to present an overly negative
image of oneself.
• The NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI), OCEAN
(Costa & McCrae, 1992).
• The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2
(MMPI-2)
• California Personality Inventory Gough (1996)
• EPQ
• 16 PF
 Projective Tests
• Psychodynamic theorists -importance of unconscious factors in understanding behavior.
• Projective tests present subjects with ambiguous stimuli and ask for some
interpretation of them.
• This approach focused on the tendency of patients to reveal their innermost conflicts
unconsciously when responding to ambiguous stimuli.
• involve reflecting the projection of inner needs, feelings, and ways of viewing the world
onto the stimulus.
• Eg Rorschach inkblots test.
• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
• Sentence Completion test
• What is happening?
• Who are the people involved?
• What has led up to this
situation?
• What is being thought, felt, and
wanted, and by whom?
• What will happen?
• How will the story turn out?
 Applications and uses of
psychological test
• Tests serve a multiplicity of functions in
these 3 areas:
Educational

Occupational

Clinical/Counselling
 1. Educational Testing
• Almost every type of available test are used in school by
educational counsellor and school psychologist
• Achievement tests assignment of grades (objectively,
uniformly and efficiently), aids in evaluation and
improvement of teaching and forming education goals
• Diagnostic and Prognostic Testing: Are useful to
identify person’s strength and weakness within a subject
matter domain
 2. Occupational Testing
• Used as aids in occupational decisions, (counseling, selection, classification and
evaluation)
• Validation of employment test is crucial
• Validation of employment test
• Global procedure for the assessment of performance, Job analysis, Prediction of job performance-
forecast future job performance
• Occupational use of the tests
• Special Aptitude test
• Personality Test in the Workplace
• Integrity Test
• Leadership
 Test use in Clinical/Counselling
Psychology
• Psychological Assessment
• Intelligence test
• Neuropsychological Assessment
• Identifying Specific Learning Disabilities
• Behavioral Assessment
• Career Assessment
• Clinical Judgement
 Uses of Test
• Psychological tests is mainly used to evaluation and make
decisions about persons.
• It is convenient to distinguish five uses of tests:
• Classification
• Diagnosis and treatment planning
• Self-knowledge
• Program evaluation
• Research
• These applications frequently overlap and difficult to distinguish one
from another.
• Eg A test = psychiatric diagnosis + self-knowledge.
1. Classification: Assigning a person to
one category
Placem Sorting of people into different
ent programs based on their skills

Screenin Identify persons who might have

g special characteristics or needs.

Certificatio Implies that a person has at least a

minimum proficiency in an activity
n (pass/fail).

Selection Confers privileges such admission in

university or hired for a particular job
 2. Diagnosis and Treatment
Planning
• Identifying the nature and source of a person’s
abnormal behavior, and classifying within an accepted
diagnostic system.
• It conveys information—about strengths, weaknesses,
etiology, and help in initiating remediation/treatment.
• Eg IQ test identify if the child is gifted or MR. (remedial
classes)
 3. Self Knowledge
• Supply a potent source of self-knowledge.
• Get to know about their strengths, weaknesses,
• The feedback a person receives from psychological tests
can change a career path or otherwise alter a person’s life
course.
 4. Program Evaluation
• Used for the systematic evaluation of educational and social programs.
• Social programs are designed to provide services that improve social
conditions & community life.
• E.g Project Head Start is a federally funded program (McKey, 1985)
aimed to provide child development programs (educational enrichment
and health services) for preschool teaching for underprivileged children.
• What impact does the Head Start program have on early childhood
development?
• Psychological tests provide an objective basis for
• immediate gains in IQ
• school readiness
• academic achievement
 5. Research
• But tests also play a major role in both the applied and
theoretical branches of behavioral research.
 Ethical Issues
1. The rationale for Professional testing standards
2. Responsibilities of Test Publishers
3. Responsibilities of Test Users**
4. Testing of Cultural and Linguistic Minorities
5. Unintended Effects of high-stake Testing
The Rationale for Professional Testing Standards

• When used ethically and responsibly, testing provides a basis for arriving at
sensible inferences about individuals and groups.
• It is intended to promote proper guidance, effective treatment, accurate evaluation,
and fair decision making
• But there are exceptions. Almost everyone has heard the horrific anecdotes:
• the minority grade schooler casually labelled as having MR the basis of a single IQ score;
• the college student diagnosed as schizophrenic from a projective test;
• the job applicant wrongfully screened from employment based on an irrelevant measure;
• the minority child penalized in testing because English is not her first language.
• These illustrate the need for ethical and professional standards in testing.
 2. Responsibilities of Test
Publishers
• Publication and marketing issues publishers should release tests of
high quality, market their product in a responsible manner, and
• restrict distribution of tests only to persons with proper qualifications.
• Competence of Test purchasers
• The APA divided test into three levels of complexity that require different
degrees of expertise from the examiner.
• Level A
• Level B
• Level C
Levels of Complexity of Test
Level simple
paper-and-
minimal
training
(non
educational
tests and

A
vocational
pencil tests psychologis
proficiency
t)
statistics aptitude
Level and
knowledge graduate
and
personality

B
of test training inventories
constructio (normal
n ppl)

Level most
complex
master’s
degree in
psychology
projective
personality
tests, IQ,
C instruments or a related
field
neuropsy
batteries.
 3. Responsibilities of Test
Users
• 1. Best interests of the Client :
• serve a constructive purpose for the individual examinee.
• avoid actions that have unintended negative consequences
• 2. Confidentiality :
• safeguard of information, issue of invasion of privacy
• ethically released to others only after the client or a legal representative gives
consent.
• Exception-withholding of information would present a danger to the client or other
persons.
• Eg suspected abuse in children and vulnerable elderly persons.
• Psychologists also have a duty to warn.
 3. Responsibilities of Test
Users
• 3. Expertise of the Test user
• well trained in assessment and measurement theory.
• poorly trained can make serious errors of test interpretation that harm
examinees.
• 4. Informed Consent
• needs to obtain informed consent from test takers or their legal representatives.
• the three elements of informed consent include
• disclosure( risks, benefits, release of reports )
• competency (mental capacity of the examinee to provide consent)
• voluntariness (free choice not forced, can leave any time)
 3. Responsibilities of Test
Users
• 5. Obsolete Tests and the standard of Care
• Refrain from using outdated test especially when new edition is available
• A case in point is the MMPI (1939) versus the MMPI-2(1989), MMPI-3 (2020)
• 6. Responsible report Writing
• Use simple and effective report writing
• The proper goal of a report is to provide helpful perspectives on the client.
 3. Responsibilities of Test
Users
• 7. Communication of Test results
• Examinees anticipate that the results will be shared with them.
• Sensitive delivery of constructive feedback to examinee in which
there misconceptions are carefully dispelled
• 8. Consideration of Individual Differences
• Knowledge of and respect for individual differences
• Should know the effect of factors such as age, gender, race,
ethnicity, national origin, religion, and SES
 5.Testing of Cultural and
Linguistic Minorities
• Background and historical notes and The impact of
Cultural background on Test results
• Unfortunately, the early pioneers in the testing movement largely
ignored the impact of cultural back- ground on test results.
• cultural factors can influence test results (racial trust/mistrust,
stereotype threat, threat of confirming)
• Eg African-American are stereotyped as possessing less IQ
• Linguistic barrier also may inhibit test performance
 6. Unintended Effects of high-stake Testing

• The prevalence of cheating on nationally administered achievement test is

unknown
• However, many reports have surfaced in recent years
• Alteration of answers sheets by school officials
• Teacher giving extra time to finish tests
• Eg, in 1999, dozens of teachers and two principals in the NY City public
school system were charged with helping students cheat on the
standardized reading and math tests used to rank schools and determine
eligibility for next grade (New York Times, December 12, 1999).
• To create an illusion of educational excellence
•Limitations??