LECTURE 1

INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGICAL
ASSESSMENT
Lecture Outline
¨ Introduction to Psychological Assessment
¨ Components of Psychological Assessment
¤ Interview
¤ Behavioral observation

¤ Psychological tests

¨ The importance of psychological testing

¤ Assessment process
¤ The uses of testing

¤ History of psychological testing

¤ Standardization, reliability & validity of tests

¨ Clinical judgement
Introduction to Psychological
Assessment
¨ A psychological assessment is the attempt of a
skilled professional, usually a psychologist, to use
the techniques and tools of psychology to learn
either general or specific facts about another
person, either to inform others of how they function
now, or to predict their behavior and functioning in
the future
Introduction to Psychological
Assessment
¨ Maloney and Ward (1976) offer that assessment
¤ Frequently uses tests
¤ Typically does not involved defined procedures or steps
¤ Contributes to some decision process to some problem, often
by redefining the problem, breaking the problem down into
smaller pieces, or highlighting some part(s) of the problem<
¤ Requires the examiner to consider, evaluate, and integrate
the data
¤ Produces results that can not be evaluated solely on
psychometric grounds
¤ Is less routine and inflexible, more individualized.
Introduction to Psychological
Assessment
¨ The point of assessment is often diagnosis or
classification.
¨ These are the act of placing a person in a strictly or
loosely defined category of people.
¨ This allows us to quickly understand what they are
like in general, and to assess the presence of other
relevant characteristics based upon people similar
to them.
Introduction to Psychological
Assessment
¨ There are several parts to assessment.
1. The interview
2. Behavioural observation
3. Testing
 The importance of psychological testing……
7

¨ Real life examples from Gregory:

¤ “Three children in a family living near a lead smelter are
exposed to the toxic effects of lead dust and suffer
neurological damage. Psychological tests indicate impaired
intelligence and attention and the family receives a $8
million dollar settlement.”
¤ “A candidate with excellent qualifications for a police job is
administered a personality test as part of the selection
procedure. The test indicates that the candidate is impulsive
and resists authority. In spite of his good CV, he is not
offered the job.”
 Psychological Tests
8

¨ Gregory:
“A test is a standardized procedure for sampling
behaviour and describing it with categories or scores”.
¤ Norms or standards
¤ Describe and predict behaviour

¨ Test results do not need to map directly to specific

physical entities.
¤ E.g. IQ tests may be useful without there being such a
thing in the brain as ‘IQ’.
Assessment vs. Testing
¨ Assessment- comprehensive procedure for obtaining
information in order to aid in decision making.
¨ Testing – Using formal, systematic procedures of
measurement to obtain information.
¨ Test: set of tasks designed to elicit examinee behavior
in a specified domain, or a system for collecting
samples of an individual’s work in a particular area
(Standards Psych Testing, APA)
Assessment Process
1. Review Referral Info 5. Interpret results
2. Obtain Background, 6. Intervention
Social, and Setting Strategies/Recomme
Information ndation
3. Hypothesis 7. Report
Development 8. Communicate with
4. Select & Administer Teacher/Parent
Tests 9. Follow up
 The Uses of Testing
11

¨ To make decisions about people

¤ Educational placement
¤ Job selection

¤ Diagnosis of neuropsychological deficits

¤ Planning of treatment and rehabilitation

¤ Sentencing of offenders.
 History of Psychological Testing
12

¨ Chinese civil service testing

¨ James McKeen Cattell (1890):
¤ first to use term 'mental test'
¨ Late C19th:
¤ intellectual ability determined by speed of thought
¨ Identification of ‘Mental Retardation’
¤ Binet asked to develop tool to identify children who needed
special instruction
¤ Binet’s intelligence tests: measured academic potential and
knowledge
 Examples from 1905 Binet scale
13

5. Finds and eats a square of chocolate

Increasing age/difficulty

…….
11. Repeats three spoken digits
…….
26. Puts ‘Paris, river, fortune’ into a sentence
…….
30. Defines difference between ‘boredom’ and
‘weariness’.
 Intelligence tests in the US
14

¨ 1920s -1950s
¨ Terman: developed Stanford-Binet test
IQ = mental age x 100
chronological age
¤ Mean IQ = 100

¤ SD = 15
 Current intelligence tests
15

¨ Developed from 1950s onwards

Wechsler Intelligence Scales

Raven’s Matrices
 16

STANDARDISATION,
VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY
The boring but very important psychometric bit.
MUST understand correlations.
 Standardisation
17

¨ Interpreting raw scores

¤ Representative sample
¨ Percentile ranks
n 50th percentile indicates middle of sample
¨ Raw score transformation
n e.g.calculating IQ (Intelligence Quotient)
n IQ = attained score for individual x100
expected score for age group
¨ Norm group important
 Norms can become outdated:
The Flynn effect
18

140
IQ score on Raven's 130

120
Matrices

110
Data from Flynn
(1987) on army 100
conscripts from
the Netherlands 90
80
1950 1962 1973 1985
Date
 19

RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY

Can a test be trusted?
 Reliability
20

¨ Reliability = degree of consistency in measurement

¨ Importance of reliability in courtroom testimony
¨ Sources of measurement error
¤ test administration
n Gregory: evidence of examiner effects
¤ systematic measurement error
¤ test scoring
 Types of reliability
21

¨ Reliability across time

¤ test-retest reliability
¤ alternate forms reliability

¨ Internal consistency
¤ split-half reliability
¤ Cronbach's coefficient Alpha

¤ interscorer reliability
 Test Validity
22

¨ Does a test measures what it is supposed to?

¨ APA working party definition:
“A test is valid to the extent that inferences made from it
are appropriate, meaningful and useful.”
 Types of validity
23

1. Criterion validity:
Do scores predict relevant variables?
¤ Diagnostic validity = concurrent state

¤ Prognostic validity = future behaviour

2. Content validity:
¤ Does the test sample the correct domain?
 Types of validity
24

2. Face validity:
¤ Does the test look valid to users?
3. Construct validity:
¤ What psychological qualities does a test measure?
¤ Convergent v discriminant validity
 25

TEST BIAS
Are tests fair?
 Test bias
26

¨ Test bias:
¤ Scores have different implications when obtained from
different subgroups of the population.
¨ Based on:
¤ Objective analysis of patterns of test scores for
relevant populations
¤ Statistical evidence for different pattern of test validity
in sub-populations
 Why test bias is controversial
27

¨ Ethnic group differences in IQ score

¤ In US Asians outperform White Americans who
outperform African Americans.
¤ When IQ tests used to make decisions about individuals
bear group differences in mind.
¨ Differences likely due to:
¤ education, interests, stereotyping, wealth, language use
etc.
 Bias in content validity
28

¨ Bias in content of items in tests

¨ Most intelligence tests
¤ Highly language and culture dependent
¤ Biased against those educated in different countries

¨ IQ tests only unbiased IF

¤ Familiar with language and education system
¨ Expert judges cannot identify biased items
 Bias in criterion validity
29

¨ Different predictive validity for different groups?

¤ Same prediction of college performance by IQ tests in
different groups.
¨ Need good studies of correlations between tests
and real world performance.
¤ Most neuropsychological tests no ethnic norms
 Test fairness
30

¨ Test fairness
¤ Reflects social values in test usage
¤ Does it seem fair to society that a test is used in a
certain way?
¨ Decision whether to use test information
¤ Ethical issue
¤ Legal implications.
 Summary
31

¨ Psychological tests were developed to address

important practical problems.
¨ Psychological tests are used to make decisions
about individuals.
¨ To be useful tests must be:
¤ Properly interpreted in relation to norms
¤ Reliable (consistent) and valid (appropriate)

¤ Unbiased and fair

 Questions you should be able to address
after this lecture
32

¨ Why are reliability and validity important attributes

of assessment techniques?
¨ What are the major uses of psychological tests?
¨ Why is a good standardisation sample important to
allow interpretation of a test score?
¨ How can we decide whether intelligence tests are
biased against particular social groups?