Psychological Assessment & Testing

Study Notes

History of Testing and Assessment

1905: Alfred Binet published a test designed to help place Paris school children in appropriate classes

Types of Assessment

Educational: evaluates abilities and skills relevant in a school context
Retrospective: draws conclusions about psychological aspects of a person as they existed at some point in time prior to the assessment
Remote: subject is not in physical proximity to the person conducting the evaluation
Ecological Momentary: "in the moment" evaluation of specific problems and related cognitive and behavioral variables at the very time and place that they occur
Collaborative: the assessor and assessee work as "partners" from initial contact through final feedback
Therapeutic: therapeutic self-discovery and new understanding are encouraged
Dynamic: describes an interactive approach to psychological assessment that usually follows the model: evaluation > intervention of some sort > evaluation

Psychological Testing

Process of measuring psychology-related variables by means of devices or procedures designed to obtain a sample of behavior
Usually numerical in nature
Can be individual or group in administration
Test administrators can be interchangeable without affecting the evaluation
Requires technician-like skills in terms of administration and scoring
Yields a test score or a series of test scores

Psychological Assessment

Answers the referral question through the use of different tools of evaluation
Administered individually
Assessor is the key to the process of selecting tests and/or other tools of evaluation
Requires an educated selection of tools of evaluation, skill in evaluation, and thoughtful organization and integration of data
Entails logical problem-solving that brings to bear many sources of data assigned to answer the referral question

Test Components

Content: subject matter
Format: form, plan, structure, arrangement, layout
Item: a specific stimulus to which a person responds overtly and this response is being scored or evaluated
Administration Procedures: one-to-one basis or group administration
Score: code or summary of statement, usually but not necessarily numerical in nature, but reflects an evaluation of performance on a test
Scoring: the process of assigning scores to performances
Cut-Score: reference point derived by judgment and used to divide a set of data into two or more classification

Psychological Measurement

Psychometric Soundness: technical quality
Psychometrics: science of psychological measurement
Psychometrist or Psychometrician: refers to a professional who uses, analyzes, and interprets psychological data

Types of Tests

Achievement Test: measures previous learning
Aptitude Test: refers to the potential for learning or acquiring a specific skill
Intelligence Test: refers to a person's general potential to solve problems, adapt to changing environments, abstract thinking, and profit from experience
Human Ability Test: considerable overlap of achievement, aptitude, and intelligence test

Personality Tests

Structured Personality Tests: provide statements, usually self-report, and require the subject to choose between two or more alternative responses
Projective Personality Tests: unstructured, and the stimulus or response are ambiguous

Interview

Method of gathering information through direct communication involving reciprocal exchange
Panel Interview (Board Interview): more than one interviewer participates in the assessment
Motivational Interview: used by counselors and clinicians to gather information

Description

Learn about the history and purpose of psychological assessment, including the work of Alfred Binet, and understand the difference between testing and assessment in educational and psychological contexts.