psychological Testing

1. Psychological Testing
An objective and standardized measure of an individual's
mental and/or behavioral characteristics
A psychological test is a standardized measure of a
sample of a person’s behavior that is used to measure
the individual differences that exist among people

2. Principles of Psychological Testing
 Standardization- All procedures and steps must be conducted with
consistency and under the same environment to achieve the same testing
performance from those being tested
 Objectivity-Scoring is free of subjective judgments or biases based on the
fact that the same results are obtained on test from everyone.
 Test Norms-The average test score within a large group of people where the
performance of one individual can be compared to the results of others by
establishing a point of comparison or frame of reference.
 Reliability-Obtaining the same result after multiple testing.
 Validity-The type of test being administered must measure what it is
intended to measure.

3. Importance of Psychological testing
• Helps to get an accurate impression of the
client’s patterns of relating
• May help us determine whether the client is a
good candidate for therapy
• May assist us in the choice of treatment methods
• May help preexisting therapeutic relationship

4. Psychological Assessment
 A process that involves checking the integration of
information from multiple sources, such as tests of
normal and abnormal personality, tests of ability or
intelligence, tests of interests or attitudes, as well as
information from personal interviews.
 Collateral information is also collected about personal,
occupational, or medical history, such as from records
or from interviews with parents, spouses, teachers, or
previous therapists or physicians.
 Involves a more comprehensive assessment of an
individual.

5. Key Ingredients
 Successful assessment requires knowledge of:
 Psychological tests
 Psychopathology
 Interviewing
 Statistics
 Development
 Hypothesis testing
 Your self

6. 6
Types of Test
Public safety employment tests
Personality inventories
Neuropsychological tests
Intelligence Tests
Aptitude Tests
Achievement Tests
Creativity Tests
Personality Tests
Interest Inventories
Behavioral Procedures

7. Intelligence Tests
 Measure an individual’s ability in relatively global
areas such as verbal comprehension, perceptual
organization, or reasoning and thereby help
determine potential for scholastic work or certain
occupations.
 The term intelligence test refers to a test that yields
an overall summary score based on results from a
heterogeneous sample of items.

8. Aptitude Tests
 Measure the capability for a relatively
specific task or type of skill; aptitude tests are,
in effect, a narrow form of ability testing.
 Aptitude tests are often used to predict
success in an occupation, training course, or
educational endeavor, such as SAT.

9. Achievement Tests
 Measure a person’s degree of learning,
success, or accomplishment in a subject or
task.
 One instrument may serve both purposes,
acting as an aptitude test to forecast future
performance and an achievement test to
monitor past learning.

10. Creativity Tests
 Assess novel, original thinking and the capacity to
find unusual or unexpected solutions, especially for
vaguely defined problems.
 Educators were especially impressed that creativity
tests required divergent thinking—putting forth a
variety of answers to a complex or fuzzy problem—
as opposed to convergent thinking—finding the
single correct solution to a well-defined problem.

11. Personality Tests
 Measure the traits, qualities, or behaviors that
determine a person’s individuality; such tests
include checklists, inventories, and projective
techniques such as sentence completions and
inkblots.

12. Interest Inventories
 Measure an individual’s preference for certain
activities or topics and thereby help determine
occupational choice.
 Interest tests are based on the explicit assumption
that interest patterns determine and, therefore, also
predict job satisfaction. For example, if the examinee
has the same interests as successful and satisfied
accountants, it is thought likely that he or she would
enjoy the work of an accountant.

13. Behavioral Procedures
 Objectively describe and count the frequency
of a behavior, identifying the antecedents and
consequences of the behavior.
 The assumption is that behavior is best
understood in terms of clearly defined
characteristics such as frequency, duration,
antecedents, and consequences.

14. Neuropsychological Tests
 Measure cognitive, sensory, perceptual, and
motor performance to determine the extent,
locus, and behavioral consequences of brain
damage.

15. Uses of Testing
 Classification
 Diagnosis and treatment planning
 Self-knowledge
 Program evaluation
 Research
 These applications frequently overlap and, on
occasion, are difficult to distinguish one from
another.