Introduction to Psychological testing
Definitions of a psychological test
A test is a measurement device or technique used to quantify behaviour or aid in the
understanding and prediction of behaviour. A spelling test, for example, measures how well
someone spells or the extent to which someone has learned to spell a specific list of words.
A psychological test is defined as “essentially an objective and standardized procedure for
sampling behaviour and describing it with scores or categories” (Anastasi and Urbina,1997)
Kaplan and Saccuzzo (2001) have illustrated “A psychological test or educational test is a set
of items designed to measure characteristics of human beings that pertain to behaviour”.
According to Gregory (2004 a), a test is a “standardised procedure for sampling behaviour
and describing it with categories of score.
Cohen and Swerdlik (2010), defined psychological testing “ as the process of measuring
psychology-related variables by means of devices or procedures designed to obtain a sample
of behaviour”.
The main use of these tests, though, is to evaluate individual differences or variations among
individuals. Such tests measure individual differences in ability and personality and assume
that the differences shown on the test reflect actual differences among individuals. For
instance, individuals who score high on an IQ test are assumed to have a higher degree of
intelligence than those who obtain low scores.
Types of Psychological tests
1. Group test: Group tests are designed as mass testing instruments not only these tests
allow simultaneous examination of large groups but they also use simplified
instructions and administration procedure. Group test were developed to meet a
pressing practical need. They can be administered on a group of people at a time and
it involves simplified examinee role there by, requiring a minimum of the training on
the part of the examiner. Multi-dimensional aptitude battery is a good example of
group test.
2. Individual test: A test can be said to be individual test in a sense that they can be
administered to only one person at a time. Many of the test in these scales require oral
responses from the examinee or necessities the manipulation of the material.
Advantage if individual test is that, an examiner can pay more attention to the
examinee but at the same time it is time consuming. Standford-Binet Intelligence test
and Weschler Intelligence scale are some good examples of individual test.
-Culture biased test: Certain test may seem biased in a sense, it favours the examiners
belonging to certain culture, linguistic capability and ethnicity. Example- Sandford-
Binet test being criticized for it being US based. Binet’s test was also accused of
showing Black with lower IQ than the whites. This test was biased based on culture,
language and ethnicity.
-Culture fair test: These test aim to minimize the influence of certain biases are
known as culture fair test. And, these tests are normally verbal and performance.
Example- Cattell’s culture fair intelligence test.
3. Personality tests: These are used to measure personality of individuals. Larsen and
Buss (2018) defined personality as a collection of psychological traits and
mechanisms that are stable and organised and that have an influence an individual’s
interaction and also has an impact on how he/she modifies his/ her physical, social
and psychological environment. It can also be explained as differences amongst
individuals with regard to their patterns of thinking, feeling and the way they behave
(American Psychological Association, 2019). Personality tests are used widely in
varied setups including clinical, educational, counselling, industrial and organisational
setup and so on. Examples of personality test are Eysenck’s Personality Inventory,
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), Somatic Inkblot Series (SIS).
- Unstructured: In contrast to structured personality tests, projective personality tests
are unstructured. In a projective personality test, either the stimulus (test materials) or
the required response—or both—are ambiguous. For example, in the highly
controversial Rorschach test, the stimulus is an inkblot. Furthermore, rather than
being asked to choose among alternative responses, as in structured personality tests,
the individual is asked to provide a spontaneous response. The inkblot is presented to
the subject, who is asked, “What might this be?” Projective tests assume that a
person’s interpretation of an ambiguous stimulus will reflect his or her unique
characteristics
- Structured: Structured personality tests provide a statement, usually of the “self-
report” variety, and require the subject to choose between two or more alternative
responses such as “True” or “False”
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4. Ability tests: Ability tests are assessment tools with which, mostly employers, test
and evaluate their employees or job candidates on certain skills and abilities.
Assessment tests can measure various skills from problem solving, communication,
manual dexterity, critical thinking and other.
-Aptitude test: It measures one or more clearly defined and relatively homogeneous
segments of ability. Such tests come in two varieties: single aptitude tests and multiple
aptitude test batteries. A single aptitude test appraises, obviously, only one ability,
whereas a multiple aptitude test battery provides a profile of scores for a number of
aptitudes. Aptitude tests are often used to predict success in an occupation, training
course, or educational endeavour. For example, the seashore Measures of Musical
talents( seashore, 1938), a series of tests covering pitch, rhythm, time, timbre, can be
used to identify children with potential talent in music. Specialized aptitude tests also
exist for the assessment of clerical skills, mechanical abilities, manual dexterity and
artistic ability. The most common use of aptitude tests is to determine college
admissions. For example Scholastic assessment test. This test contains a verbal
section stressing word knowledge and reading comprehension; a mathematics section
and a writing section. In effect, colleges that require certain minimum scores on the
SAT for admission are using the test to predict academic success.
- Achievement tests: measure a person’s degree of learning, success or
accomplishments in a subject matter. The implicit assumption of most achievement
tests is that the schools have taught the subject matter directly. The purpose of the test
is then to determine how much of the material the subject has absorbed or mastered. It
commonly has several subtests like reading, social studies. The distinction between
aptitude and achievement is more a matter of use than content. Any test can be an
aptitude test to the extent that it helps predict future performance.
- Intelligence tests: Traditionally distinguished from achievement and aptitude,
intelligence refers to a person’s general potential to solve problems, adapt to changing
circumstances, think abstractly, and profit from experience. Intelligence tests were
originally designed to sample a broad assortment of skills in order to estimate the
individual’s general intellectual level. The Binet-Simon scales were successful, in
part, because they incorporated heterogeneous tasks, including word definitions,
memory for designs, comprehension questions, and spatial visualization tasks. The
group intelligence tests that blossomed with such profusion during and after WWII
also tested diverse abilities—witness the Army Alpha with its eight different sections
measuring practical judgment, information, arithmetic, and reasoning, among other
skills.
Principles of a psychological test
Following are the significant characteristics that a good psychological should possess
1. Standardised Procedure: It is considered an essential trait of a psychological test.
The procedure for administering should be uniform throughout the test. Furthermore,
the standardisation depends on the examiner’s skill. To achieve the standardisation of
the test, the instructions of the test for administration should be clearly defined.
2. Norms: Refers to a representative sample’s average performance on a specific test.
Moreover, it helps in comparing the score of a person with the comparative group.
The most common types of norms used in a psychological test include Age norms,
grade norms, percentile norms, and standard score norms. Without the test norms, the
interpretation of the test score is not possible.
3. Reliability: A test must also be reliable. Dependability, stability, consistency,
predictability, and correctness are synonyms for reliability. It is the test consistency
that makes a test reliable. In simple words, a reliable test yields consistent results on
several occasions. The appropriate time to yield similar scores is usually a fortnight
Singh (2006 b).
4. Validity: It is regarded as the most significant characteristic of a good test. To put it
another way, test validity means that the test must measure what it was designed to
assess. The basic way to determine validity is to look at how test scores relate to some
standard, such as a personal achievement, specific characteristic, and the behaviour
that reflects the traits intended to assess.
Factors affecting test performance
1. Influence of the examiner
The need of a qualified examiner is evident. In each psychological setup such as selection of
a test, administration and scoring and interpretation of the scores. The role of examiner is
crucial in a sense that the examiner is both qualitative and quantitative in nature. The test
results may be influenced by the examiners behaviour immediately preceding and during the
test administration. There may be significant interactions between the examiner and the
examinee characteristics on the other hand there situations in which an examiner may
inadvertently affect the test takers response through examiners own expectations.
Rapport: In psychometrics, the term rapport refers to the examiners effort to arouse the
examinees interest in the test, elicit cooperation and ensure that he or she follows the standard
test instructions. The training of examiner covers technique of establishment of rapport as
well as those more directly related to test administration. In establishing rapport, as in other
testing procedures the uniformity of conditions is essential for comparison of results. Specific
techniques for establishing rapport vary with the nature of the test and age and other
characteristics of the person tested. For eg., a friendly, cheerful and relaxed manner on the
part of the examiner helps to reassure the child as the shy, timid child needs more preliminary
time to become familiar with his surroundings. The cooperation of the examiner can usually
be secured by convincing them that it is in their own interest to obtain a valid score, that is a
score correctly indicating what they can do rather than overestimating or underestimating
there abilities.
2. Environmental factors
The environmental conditions before conducting a test must be taken care of. For conducting
a test smoothly, usually following precautions are taken
(a)Well lit room
(b)No distractions must be present. For example- cell phones
(c)The room is kept noise free to avoid distractions
(d)The materials are set up beforehand to avoid chaos during conduction of the experiment
All the abovementioned factors are taken care of so that testing conditions are uniform
throughout the session and there are no discrepancies in results.
3. Examinee’s psychological factors
Examinees differ not only in the characteristics that examiners desire to assess but also in
other extraneous ways that might confound the test results. For example, a bright subject
might perform poorly on a speeded ability test because of test anxiety; a sane murderer might
seek to appear mentally ill on a personality inventory to avoid prosecution; a student of
average ability might undergo coaching to perform better on an aptitude test. Some subjects
utterly lack motivation and don’t care if they do well on psychological tests.
Test anxiety refers to those phenomenological, physiological, and behavioral responses that
accompany concern about possible failure on a test. There is no doubt that subjects
experience different levels of test anxiety ranging from a carefree outlook to incapacitating
dread at the prospect of being tested.
Test results also may be inaccurate if the examinee has reasons to perform in an inadequate or
unrepresentative manner. Overt faking of test results is rare, but it does happen. A small
fraction of persons seeking benefits from rehabilitation or social agencies will consciously
fake bad on personality and ability tests.
