Introduction to and History of Testing and Assessment

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Introduction to and History of Testing and
Assessment
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Introduction

• Some terminology
• Item a specific stimulus to which a person
  responds overtly
• Scales raw scores on test items are related to
  some defined theoretical or empirical distribution

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Terminology (contd)

• Test measurement device or technique used to
  quantify behavior or aid in the understanding
  prediction of behavior
• Assessment gathering integrating psych-related
  data for purpose of psych evaluation

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Terminology (contd)

• Psychometrics the science of psychological
  measurement
• Involves how consistently and accurately a test
  measures what it says it measures
• Individual and group tests

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Conceptualizing Testing Assessment

• Includes a broad array of evaluation procedures

Personality Testing Objective Projective Interes
t Inventories
Informal Assessment Records and Personal
Documents Classification
Techniques Observation Rating Scales
Ability Testing Achievement Aptitude Intelligence
The Clinical Interview
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Historical Context Ancient

• 2200 B.C. Chinese used examinations for civil
  service employees
• 428 327 B.C.E. Plato noted that Greeks assessed
  intellectual and physical ability of men when
  screening for state service

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Historical Context Precursors to Modern-Day

• Esquirol (1830's) used language ability to
  identify intelligence forerunner of verbal
  intelligence testing
• Seguin (1800's) worked with mentally retarded to
  ? motor control and sensory discrimination
  forerunner of performance intelligence testing

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Historical Context Precursors to Modern-Day

• Darwin (mid 1800s) focused on individual
  differences
• Galton (late 1800sDarwins cousin) looked at
  differences in sensory motor activities
• Wundt (1879) looked at sensitivity to visual,
  auditory, and other sensory stimuli and reaction
  time
• Cattell (late 1800s) phrased term "mental test
  and used statistics concepts to understand
  differences.

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Historical Context Modern Day Ability Testing

• Individual Intelligence Testing
• Binet (1890's) Developed first modern-day
  intelligence test
• Used representative sample to form his
  standardization sample
• Terman Revised Binet scale-- Stanford-Binet
• I.QMA/CA

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History Modern Day Group Ability Testing

• Group Testing
• WWI Yerkes, Terman, and others develop Army
  Alpha and Army Beta
• Kelley, Ruch, Terman (1923) Stanford
  Achievement Test
• After WWII
• James Bryant Conant creates SATs
• Vocational counseling?Special Aptitude Tests and
  Multiple Aptitude Tests

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Modern-Day Personality Assessment

• Thorndike and Miner (early 1900s) first to
  assess interests
• Strong (1927) Strong Vocational Interest Blank
• Kraeplin (1892) Crude word association test to
  study schizophrenia
• Woodworth's Personal Data Sheet (WWI) Kept
  unfit out of army by using items related to
  neuroticism. Forerunner to MMPI

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Modern-Day Personality Assessment (Contd)

• Galton (1879) wrote on projective testing
• Experiments such as these allow an unexpected
  amount of illumination to enter into the deepest
  recess of the character, which are opened and
  bared by them like the anatomy of an animal under
  the scalpel of a dissector in broad daylight

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Modern-Day Personality Assessment (Contd)

• Carl Jung (1904) used 100 stimulus words to
  detect mental illness
• Herman Rorschach (early 1900s) Inkblot Test
• Murray Morgans Thematic Apperception Test

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Emergence of Informal Assessment Procedures

• Situational Tests (1930s) used contrived
  naturalistic situations
• Observation
• Rating Scales
• Personal Documents
• Clinical Interview
• Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental
  disorders (DSM-IV-TR) (1st developed in 1952)
• Also, see http//www.behavenet.com/capsules/disor
  ders/dsm4TRclassification.htm

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Questions to Consider When Assessing People

• How valid is the information gained from
  assessment instruments and how should that
  information be applied?
• How do assessment instruments invade ones
  privacy and does the government have, at times,
  the right to insist an individual be assessed?

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Exercise! Pervasiveness of psychological tests
Reasons for the use of psychological tests

• Choose one setting below. Take out a piece of
  paper and write down at least two reasons why
  psychological tests might be administered in each
  of the settings listed. Also think about
  examples and write them.
• Psychiatric Hospitals or Clinics
• Medical Hospitals or Clinics
• Family or Child Guidance Centers
• Elementary and High schools
• College or Universities
• Criminal and Civil Courts
• Business and Industries