Psychological Testing and Assessment Notes
Personality tests measure typical behaviour.
Test - a measurement device or technique used to quantify behaviour or aid in the understanding
and prediction of behaviour. Remember that a test measures only a sample of behaviour, and they
are not perfect measures of a behaviour or characteristic, but will probably help in the prediction
process.
 Item – a specific stimulus to which a person responds overtly. This response can be
scored (objective tests) or evaluated (projective techniques). The specific questions or
problems that make up a test. The data produced in psychological and educational tests
are explicit and subjected to scientific inquiry.
Psychological Test – (educational test) set of items that are designed to measure characteristics of
human beings that pertain to behaviour. Measures past or current behaviour. Some also attempt
to predict future behaviour.
Types of Behaviour:
 Overt Behaviour – an individual’s observable activity.
 Covert Behaviour – takes place within the individual and cannot be directly observed.
Examples are feelings and thoughts.
Scales- used by psychologists to relate raw scores on test items to some defined theoretical or
empirical distribution.
Traits – enduring characteristics or tendencies to respond in a certain manner. Examples are
‘determination’ and ‘shyness’.
Test Scores – may be related to the state, specific condition or status of an individual.
Tests measures many types of behaviour.
TYPES OF TESTS
Test Administrator – person assigned to give the test. Gives the test to only one person at a time,
depending on the type of test.
 Individual Tests – those that can be given to only one person at a time.
 Group Test – can be administered to more than one person at a time by a single
examiner.
Note: One can categorize tests according to the type of behaviour that they measure.
o Achievement – refers to previous learning.
o Aptitude – potential for learning or acquiring a specific skill.
o Intelligence – refers to a person’s general potential to solve problems, adapt to changing
circumstances, think abstractly, and profit from experience.
Note: distinctions among these three are not so clear because all three are highly interrelated. All
three are encompassed by the term Human Ability.
Note: there is, however, a clean cut distinction between ability tests and personality tests. Ability
Tests are related to capacity or potential, while Personality Tests are related to overt and covert
dispositions of an individual, like the tendency of a person to respond to a given situation.
The types of Personality Tests are:
 Structured Personality Tests – (objective tests) provide a statement, usually of the self-
report variety, like the ‘True or False” types.
 Projective Personality Tests – unstructured. The stimulus (test material) or the required
response are ambiguous. Examples are the Rorschach and Thematic Apperception Test.
This type of test assumes that a person’s interpretation of an ambiguous stimuli might
somehow reflect his or her unique characteristics, or their underlying feelings or
thoughts.
Psychological Testing - refers to all the possible uses, applications, and underlying concepts of
psychological and educational tests. The main use of these tests, though, is to evaluate individual
differences or variations among individuals.
Such tests measures individual differences in ability and personality, to show actual differences
among individuals. Its most important purpose is to differentiate among test takers.
Two of the most fundamental concepts in testing:
o Reliability – accuracy, dependability, consistency, or repeatability of test results. Degree
to which test scores are free of measurement errors. Consistency of test scores over
time.
o Validity – meaning and usefulness of test results. Degree to which a certain inference or
interpretation is appropriate. Measure what it is supposed to measure.
Interview – a method of gathering information through verbal interaction. Traditionally served as a
major technique of gathering psychological information. Data from interviews provide an
important complement to test results.
HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS
Evidence suggests that the Chinese had a relatively sophisticated civil service testing program more
than 4000 years ago. Every third year, oral examinations were given to help determine work
evaluations and promotion decisions. Use of Test Batteries (two or more tests used in conjunction)
was quite common.
The English copied the Chinese System as a method of selecting employees for overseas duty.
In 1883, the US Government established the American Civil Service Commission, which developed
and administered competitive examinations for certain government jobs.
MEASURING INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
Started with Charles Darwin’s publication of his highly influential book, The Origin of Species in
1859. According to his theory, higher forms of life evolved partially because of differences among
individual forms of life within a species. Those with the best adaptive characteristics survive at the
expense of those who are less fit and that the survivor’s characteristics are passed on to the next
generation.
Sir Francis Galton applied Darwin’s theories to the study of human beings. In his book, Hereditary
Genius (1869), he set out to show that some people possessed characteristics that made them
more fit than the others. He began a series of experimental studies, and concentrated on
demonstrating that individual differences exists in human sensory and motor functioning.
James McKeen Cattell extended Galton’s work and coined the term Mental Test. His doctoral
dissertation was based on Galton’s work on individual differences in reaction time.
J.E. Herbart developed mathematical models of the mind, which he used as the basis for
educational theories.
E.H. Weber attempted to demonstrate the existence of a psychological threshold, the minimum
stimulus necessary to activate a sensory system.
G.T Fechner devised the law that the strength of a sensation grows as the logarithm of the stimulus
intensity.
Wilhelm Wundt is credited with founding the science of psychology. He set up a laboratory at the
University of Leipzig in 1879, and was later called the father of Experimental Psychology.
His successors were E.B. Titchener, whose student, G. Whipple, recruited L.L. Thurstone.
Whipple provided the basis for immense changes in the field of testing by conducting a seminar at
the Carnegie Institute in 1919. From this seminar came the Carnegie Interest Inventory and later
the Strong Vocational Interest Blank.
Thus, psychological testing developed from at least two lines of inquiry: one based on the work of
Darwin, Galton, and Cattell on the measurement of individual differences, and the other (more
theoretically relevant and probably stronger) based on the work of the German psychophysicists
Herbart, Weber, Fechner, and Wundt.
Modern psychological tests also arose in response to important needs such as classifying and
identifying the mentally and emotionally handicapped.
Seguin Form Board Test – was developed in an effort to educate and evaluate the mentally
disabled.
Emil Kraepelin also devised a series of examinations for evaluating emotionally impaired people.
He was identified as the founder of modern scientific psychiatry, as well as of psychopharmacology
and psychiatric genetics
BINET-SIMON SCALES
At the turn of the 20th century, an important breakthrough was when the French Minister of Public
Instruction appointed a commission to study ways of identifying intellectually subnormal
individuals in order to provide them with appropriate educational experiences. One member was
Alfred Binet, and in his collaboration with French physician Theodore Simon, developed the first
major general intelligence test. This effort launched the first systematic attempt to evaluate
individual differences in human intelligence. The principal goal of the Binet-Simon Scale was to
identify students who needed special help in coping with the school curriculum.
The first version of the Binet-Simon Scale was published in 1905. It contained 30 items of
increasing difficulty and was designed to identify intellectually subnormal individuals.
Standardization sample consisted of 50 children. The authors of the scale developed norms to
which they could compare the results from any new subject.
The emphasis was on language and verbal skills.
Further development of the Binet test involved attempts to increase the size and
representativeness of the standardization sample. A representative sample is one that comprises
individuals similar to those for whom the test is to be used. When the test is used for the general
population, a representative sample must reflect all segments of the population in proportion to
their actual numbers.
The 1908 Binet-Simon scale. Revised to include nearly twice as many items compared to the 1905
scale. Standardization sample was increased to more than 200. It also determined a child’s Mental
Age, which is the measurement of a child’s performance on the test relative to other children of
the particular age group.
The Binet-Simon Scale received a minor revision in 1911.
Lewis Terman of Stanford University had revised the Binet scale in 1916 for use in the US. His
revision was known as the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, the only American version of the
Binet scale that flourished. Standardization Sample included 1000 people. Original items were
revised and many new items were added.
The 1937 Revision of the Stanford-Binet scale included a standardization sample of more than
3000 individuals.
In 1938, revision included performance subtests.
WORLD WAR I
Robert Yerkes, the president of the American Psychological Association in 1917 headed a
committee who developed two structured group tests of human abilities; the Army Alpha and the
Army Beta. The Army Alpha required reading ability, while the Army Beta measured intelligence of
illiterate adults.
The development of standardized achievement tests followed shortly after WWI. Standardized
Achievement Tests provide multiple-choice questions that are standardized on a large sample to
produce norms for comparison across individuals. SATs flourished because of the relative ease of
administration and scoring, and lack of subjectivity or favouritism. SATs also provided a broader
coverage and were less expensive compared to essays. The development of SATs culminated in the
publication of the Stanford Achievement Test by Kelley, Ruch, and Terman.
WECHSLER INTELLIGENCE SCALES
In 1939, David Wechsler published the Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Scale, which unlike the
Stanford-Binet test that produced only a single score (the IQ), Wechsler’s test yielded several
scores, permitting an analysis of an individual’s pattern or combination of abilities. Among the
various scores was the Performance IQ, which was obtained by tests that do not require a verbal
response.
PERSONALITY TESTS
Earliest were structured paper-and-pencil group tests, which provided multiple choice and true or
false questions that could be administered to a large group. First one was the Woodworth
Personal Data Sheet, an early structured personality test that assumed that a test response can be
taken at face value. The California Psychological Inventory (CPI) is a structured personality test
developed according to the same principles as the MMPI.

Factor Analysis - a method of finding the minimum number of dimensions (characteristics,

attributes), called factors, to account for a large number of variables. J.R. Guilford first made use of
factor analytic techniques, then R.B. Cattell introduced the Sixteen Personality Factor
Questionnaire (16PF)