This document discusses psychological testing, including its definition, uses, and ethical considerations. It provides details on: - The key features of tests including standardized procedures, behavior samples, scores/categories, norms, and prediction of non-test behaviors. - The types of tests like intelligence, aptitude, achievement, personality, and neuropsychological tests. - The uses of testing such as classification, diagnosis, self-knowledge, program evaluation, and research. - Factors that influence the soundness of testing like administration, examiner characteristics, and examinee factors. - The responsibilities of test users including clients' best interests, informed consent, consideration of individual/cultural differences, and

1. Applications and Consequences
of Psychological Testing

2. Topic 1A
• The Nature and Uses of
Psychological Testing

3. The Consequences of Testing
• From birth to old age, people encounter tests at
all most every turning point in life.
• Whether a person is admitted to one college and
not another , offered one job but refused a
second, diagnosed as depressed or not—all
such determinations rest, at least in part, on the
meaning of test results as interpreted by persons
in authority.
• True-Life Vignettes of Testing: Useful or abusive

4. Definition of A Test
• Tests are enormously varied in their
formats and applications. Nonetheless,
most tests posses these defining features:
• 1.Standardized procedure
• 2.Behavior sample
• 3.Scores or categories
• 4.Norms or standards
• 5.Prediction of nontest behavior

5. Standardized procedure
• A test is considered to be standardized if
the procedures for administering it are
uniform from one examiner and setting to
another.
• Take the “digit span” test for example, the
directions are : to present the number at
constant rate, to keep a neutral facial
expression when examiner records
subjects’ answer, and to know how to react
to unexpected responses.

6. Behavior sample
• Practical constrains dictate that a test is
only a sample of behavior. Yet, the sample
of behavior is of interest only insofar as it
permits the examiner to make inferences
about the total domain of relevant
behaviors.
• The test items need not resemble the
behaviors that the test is attempting to
predict.

7. Scores or categories
• In most cases, all people are assumed to
possess the trait or characteristic being
measured, albeit in different amounts.
• Cautions:
• First, the imprecision of testing is simply
unavoidable. X=T+e
• Second, test results do not represent a thing
with physical reality. Typically, they portray an
abstraction, such as IQ, that has been shown to
be useful in predicting nontest behaviors.

8. Norms or standards
• An examinee’s test score is usually
interpreted by comparing it with the scores
obtained by others on the same test.
• For this purpose, test developers typically
provide norms—a summary of test results
for a large and representative group of
subjects.
• An exception to this point occurs in the
case of criterion-referenced tests.

9. Prediction of nontest behavior
• The ultimate purpose of a test is to predict
additional behaviors, other than those
directly sampled by the test.
• The ability of a test to predict nontest
behavior is determined by an extensive
body of validational research, most of
which is conducted after the test is
released.

10. Further Distinctions In Testing
• Norm-referenced test v.s. criterion-referenced test
• In a criterion-referenced test, the objective is to
determine where the examine stands with respect
very tightly defined educational objectives.
• Testing v.s. assessment
• Assessment is a more comprehensive term,
referring to the entire process of compiling
information about a person and using it to make
inferences about characteristics and other
psychological tests.

11. Types of Tests
• Intelligence Tests
• Aptitude Tests
• Achievement Tests
• Creativity Tests
• Personality Tests
• Interest Inventories
• Behavioral Procedures
• Neuropsychological Tests

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. 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.

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

20. 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.

21. Classification
• Assigning a person to one category rather
than another.
• Placement, screening, certification, and
selection

22. Diagnosis and treatment planning
• Diagnosis consists of two intertwined tasks:
determining the nature and source of a
person’s abnormal behavior, and
classifying the behavior pattern within an
accepted diagnostic system.
• Diagnosis should be more than mere
classification, more than the assignment of
a label.

23. Self-knowledge
• Psychological tests also can supply a
potent source of self-knowledge.
• In some cases, the feedback a person
receives from psychological tests can
change a career path or otherwise alter a
person’s life course.

24. Program evaluation
• Educational program evaluation and social
program evaluation

25. Research
• Collecting the data from psychological
tests to check the research hypothesis.

26. Factors Influencing the Soundness
of Testing
• The manner of administration, the
characteristics of the tester, the context of
the testing, the motivation and experience
of the examinee, and the method of
scoring.

27. Standardized Procedures in Test
Administration
• Standards for Educational and
Psychological Testing, published by the
American Psychological Association and
other groups.
• Specifications regarding instructions to
test takers, time limits, the form of item
presentation or response, and test
materials or equipment should be strictly
observed.

28. Desirable Procedures of Test
Administration
• Sensitivity to Disabilities: try to help the
disable subject overcome his
disadvantage, such as increasing voice
volume or refer to other available tests
• Desirable Procedures of Group Testing:
Be care for time, clarity, physical condition
(illumination, temperature, humidity, writing
surface and noise), and guess.

29. Influence of the Examiner
• The importance of Rapport
• Rapport means a comfortable, warm
atmosphere that serves to motivate
examinees and elicit cooperation.
• Examiner sex, experience, and race: the
results are contradictory, inconclusive.

30. Background and Motivation of the
Examinee
• Test Anxiety
• Anxiety causes bad performance and then
results in anxiety again v.s. bad performance
history causes anxiety
• Motivation to Deceive
• Does the client have motivation to perform
deceitfully on the tests?
• Is the overall pattern of test results suspicious in
light of other information known about the client?

31. Topic 1B
• Ethical and Social
Implications of Testing

32. Ethical and Professional
Quandaries in Testing
• Case Exhibit 1.3
• 1.Is it ethical for the psychologist to deny such
feedback to the candidates?
• 2.Is the counselor’s refusal to use the MMPI-2 a
breach of professional standards?
• 3.Is it an appropriate practice to use a translator
when administering an individual test such as
the WISC-III
• 4.Is the psychologist obligated to report this case
to law enforcement?

33. Responsibilities of Test Users
• Best interests of the Client: Assessment should
serve a constructive purpose for the individual
examinee. With certain worry-prone and self-
doubting clients, a psychologist may choose not to
use an appropriate test, since these clients are
almost certain to engage in self-destructive
misinterpretation of virtually any test findings.
• Confidentiality and the Duty to Warn: The clinician
should consider the client’s welfare in deciding
whether to release information, especially when
the client is a minor who is unable to give voluntary,
informed consent.

34. Responsibilities of Test Users
• Expertise of the Test User:A common error
observed among inexperienced test users is the
overzealous, pathologized interpretation of
personality test results. Case Exhibit 1.4
• Informed Consent: From a legal standpoint, the
three elements of informed consent include
disclosure, competency, and voluntariness.
Disclosure means the client receive sufficient
information, such as risks, benefits, release of
reports. Competency refers to the mental
capacity of the examinee to provide consent.
Voluntariness implies that the choice to undergo
an assessment battery is given freely and not
based on subtle coercion.

35. Responsibilities of Test Users
• Obsolete Tests and the Standard of Care:
Standard of care means “usual, customary or
reasonable” in professional or legal review of
specific health practices, including psychological
testing. Using obsolete tests might violate the
prevailing standard of care.
• Responsible Report Writing: typically use simple
and direct writing that steers clear of jargon and
technical terms.

36. Responsibilities of Test Users
• Communication of Test Results: Proper and
effective feedback involves give-and-take dialogue
in which the clinician ascertains how the client has
perceived the information and seeks to correct
potentially harmful interpretations.
• Consideration of Individual Differences:
Practitioners are expected to know when a test or
interpretation may not be applicable because of
factors such as age, gender, race, ethnicity,
national origin, religion, sexual orientation,
disability, language, and socioeconomic status.

37. The Impact of Cultural Background
on Test Results
• Figure 1.6.
• High-mistrust group with an African
American examiner scored much better
than the high-mistrust group with a white
examiner.
• Figure 1.7
• Stereotype threat

38. Assessment of Cultural and
Linguistic Minorities
• The likelihood that linguistic barriers and
lack of test sophistication will influence test
results of minorities is a strong argument
in favor of using a careful Multidisciplinary
assessment approach.