Week 1: What are Psychological Tests?
Psychological tests are used to
help make decisions about people, promote self-understanding and measure psychological constructs.
Psychological tests are
important tools for psychological research
The Queensland Traffic Test was specifically designed by McElwain and Kearney to avoid dependency on
language of administration
Evidence of psychological testing can be traced back to
public service examinations in ancient China
'Empirical keying' refers to
scoring a test based on its ability to discriminate between certain identifiable groups of people
Projective tests are not objective because
scoring is heavily dependent on the judgement of the scorer
Projective tests originated from
Freud's idea that all behavior was caused by unconcsious motivational effects
The first self-report test of personality was developed by
Woodworth
Tests used a sign of behaviour require
an inference from the observed behaviour to the existence of an underlying disposition
A psychological test is
an objective procedure for sampling and quantifying human behaviour
Psychological tests are usually composed of a large number of items because
any one item is usually influenced by a host of factors apart from the psychological construct of interest
The first theory of intelligence was developed by
Spearman
Norm-referenced tests
- Individual score compared to average performance of a large number of individuals - Need indicator of score location in relation to norms - Most psych tests
Criterion-referenced tests
-Individual score compared to a set of apriori criteria of adequate or required performance (e.g driving test) - Often pass/fail rather than degree of pass/fail -More common in educational settings, credentialling, diagnosis
James McKeen Cattell coined the term mental test in which decade?
1890-1899
The first intelligence test was developed by
Binet and Simon
The Rorschach was originally designed to identify
Jungian psychological types
The Deviation IQ is based on the notion of
a z-score
The army alpha was
dependent on the ability to read and write
Objective tests are objective because
different scorers are likely to produce the same test score from the same test performance
The MMPI was designed to
discriminate between normals and patient groups with particular diagnoses
Porteus developed an early performance test based on
mazes
The dictation test, a key tool in enforcing the White Australia policy, involved
migrants having to write about 50 words in any prescribed language
Human judgement is influenced by
personal bias, the halo effect and errors of central tendency
The psychological testing enterprise began to be questioned on the grounds of
privacy, diversity and discrimination
A psychological test can become obsolete when
psychological theory develops to render the basis of the test obsolete, society changes to render the contents less appropriate, and/or society changes to render the test's norms obsolete
The major forms of psychological test, as we know them today, had been developed by
the 1950's
Wechsler based his concept of verbal and performance scales on
the army Alpha and Beta
Spearman's g refers to
the common element in all cognitive tests
One of the major achievements of psychology in the 20th century was
the development and application of psychological tests.
Tests used a sample of behaviour require
the direct performance of the behaviour of interest
Psychological assessment refers to
the high-level reasoning process involved in the application of psychological procedures
