EPY 7202/EPS 7203: Psychometric

Assessment
Definition of Terms
What is a test?
According to Gregory (2004), a test refers to a
standardized procedure for sampling behaviour and
describing it with categories of scores.
A test consists of a series of items, on the basis of which
some information is sought about one or more aspects of
an individual’s or group’s traits, abilities, motives,
attitude, and so on.
 Introduction
 What is Psychometrics?
 Psychometrics is the science of psychological
assessment. The scientific principles that
underpin psychometrics apply equally to other
forms of assessment such as educational
examinations, clinical diagnoses, crime
detection, credit ratings, and staff recruitment
 Introduction
 What is a Psychological test?
 Anastasi and Urbina (1997) have defined a
psychological test as an objective and
standardized measure of a sample of behaviour.
 According to Singh (2006), it is a standardized
procedure to measure quantitatively or
qualitatively one or more aspects of a trait by
means of a sample of verbal or non-verbal
behaviour.
 Characteristics of Psychological Test
 Standardized procedure: A test is considered to be
‘standardized’ if the procedure for administering it
is uniform from one examiner and setting to another.
 Behaviour sample: A test targets a well-defined
behaviour
 Scores or categories: This is based on the premise
that ‘whatever exist at all, exist in some amount’,
and ‘anything that exists in an amount can be
measured’.
 Characteristics of Psychological Test
 Norms/standards: Norms are statistical/average
series of a large and representative group of subjects.
 Prediction of non-test behaviour: The ultimate
purpose of a test is to predict the additional
behaviour other than those directly sampled by the
test. Suppose a person’s score on introversion scale
is 25/40, then this means that the person is highly
introvert. So, based on this, we can make a
prediction that this person will not be very
successful as a human resource officer.
Characteristics of Psychological Test
 Accuracy: They should strive to be accurate
 Validity: They should measure what they intend
to measure
 Generalization: They should produce scores
that can be meaningfully compared between
people.
 Objectivity: They should be free from bias
against members of certain groups.
Purpose of Psychometric Assessment
 Used in clinical psychology as a means of
diagnosing mental health problems.
 Used in forensic psychology in working
therapeutically with offenders, as well as in
conducting assessments requested by courts of
law to help in decision-making
Purpose of Psychometric Assessment
 Used in educational psychology to identify
learners with different learning disabilities.
 Used in health psychology to identify how best
to support someone who has experienced a
major heart operation or a diagnosis of cancer
and provide guidance to carers and families.
Where an individual is suffering high levels of
depression or anxiety, assessment materials can
aid diagnosis.
Purpose of Psychometric Assessment
 Ability, aptitude and personality assessments are
used widely in occupational psychology.
 They can be used for selection, for promotion,
coaching, development and training purposes
and in career counselling by occupational
psychologists and other professionals.
Purpose of Psychometric Assessment
 In clinical neuropsychology practitioners use
many assessment tools in diagnosing brain
damage resulting from accidents, strokes or
dementia and in helping people suffering
epilepsy.
 The consequences of an accident or stroke may
result in poorer attention span, weaker memory
and poorer use of language.
 Types of Psychological Tests
A) According to Mode of Administration
 Individual tests are administered to one person
at a time and are useful for collecting
comprehensive information about the testee.
 Group tests are primarily designed for ‘mass-
testing’, that is, they can be administered to
more than one individual at time. They are
economical and time saving.
 Types of Psychological Tests
B) According to Rate of Performance
Speed Tests are timed tests, that is, they examine the
subject's speed of responding within the stipulated period
of time. Test items in a Speed Test are of uniform
difficulty but time limit is such that no examinee can
attempt all the items.
Power Tests are tests where items are managed according
to their increasing order of difficulty and certain items are
such that they are too difficult for anyone to solve. They
however offer enough time for the subject to attempt all
the questions.
 Types of Psychological Tests
C)According to Behavioral Attribute Measured
 Personality tests are designed to measure a person's
individuality in terms of his unique traits and
behaviour
 Ability tests assess qualities that enable an individual
to do specific tasks at a specified time
 Intelligence tests. Intelligence refers to the global
mental capacities of an individual, and tests of
intelligence essentially measure rational and abstract
thinking of an individual.
 Types of Psychological Tests
 Aptitude tests are designed to measure the
subjects’ capability of learning specific task or
acquiring specific skill.
 Achievement tests. Achievement refers to a
person's past learning and achievement tests are
designed to measure a person's past learning
upon accomplishment of a task.
 Types of Psychological Tests
 Creativity tests. Creativity refers to a person's
ability to think new ideas and creativity tests are
designed to measure a person's ability to
produce new and original ideas.
 Attitude tests. Attitude refers to our evaluation
about various aspects of the world and tests of
attitude measure a person's tendency to evaluate
favourably or unfavourably a class of events,
objects or persons
 Types of Psychological Tests
 Value tests. Values are normative frameworks
related to individual/ group behaviour or
expectations. Items on value test contain items
like: “I would prefer a friend who…”
 Interest tests. These measure ones likes and
dislikes.
 Types of Psychological Tests
D)According to the Medium Used
Paper and-pencil tests require students to read or write
independently or to demonstrate the understanding of
concepts at a symbolic level and they can take this
format:
Objective type,
Short answer type or
Extended answer type.
Situational tests test a person by putting the candidate in
the actual or highly real life simulated conditions.
 Types of Psychological Tests
E)According to the Nature of Test Items
Verbal tests are the tests in which responses of the testee are
recorded in the verbal format and the emphasis is on reading,
writing and oral expression.
Non-verbal tests are those which emphasize use of symbolic
materials like pictures, figures, and so on. Such tests use the
language in instructions but in items they do not use
language.
Objective tests in which the responses are of multiple choice
types,
Essay tests in which the responses are of long answer type.
 Types of Psychological Tests
F)Based on the Mode of Interpretation
Norm Referenced Tests compare an individual's
results on the test with the statistically representative
sample. In practice, rather than testing a population,
a representative sample or a group is tested. This
provides a group norm or a set of norms.
Criterion Referenced Test is where the testee's
score is compared with an objectively stated
standard of performance on that test.
 Types of Psychological Tests
G)According to Mode of Scoring
Self-scored tests: The testee himself/herself can
score his responses with the help of a scoring key.
Expert scored tests: The test responses are scored
by an expert person (generally the test administrator).
Hand scored tests are the tests that are scored
manually
Machine scored tests are the tests that are scored
with the help of a machine (computer aided).
 Types of Psychological Tests
H)According to the Scope
 Culture-specific and
 Culture-free tests.
 All the tests, at least to some extent, are culture
specific and it is very difficult to find a test
which is totally culture-free.