The process of designing and constructing a test, from the initial concept to its final administration and scoring, as well as its statistical analysis and reporting, is known as test construction (Zijlmans et al., 2019). Test construction is the set of activities involved in developing and evaluating a test of some psychological function. The development of a good psychological test requires six essential steps: Planning. Writing items for the test. Preliminary administration of the test. Checking the reliability of the final test. Checking the validity of the final test. Preparation of the test manual and reproduction of the test.

1. DR VANDANA GAUR
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY

2. Meaning of test-
• A psychological test is a standardized procedure to measure quantitative or
qualitative one or more than one aspect of a trait by means of a sample of verbal
or nonverbal behavior.
• A psychological test or educational test is a set of items designed to measure
characteristics of human being that pertain to behavior(Kaplan and
Saccuzzo,2001)

3. Characteristics of a good test
• Objectivity
• Reliability
• Validity
• Norms
• Practicability

4. Classification of Test
• On the basis of the criterion of administrative condition
a- Individual, b-Group test
• On the basis of the criterion of scoring
a- Objective test, b- Subjective test
• On the basis of the criterion of time limit
a- Power test, b- Speed test
• On the basis of the criterion of nature of contents of item
a-Verbal test, b- Non-verbal test, c- Performance test
• On the basis of criterion of standardization
a- Standardize test, b- Non standardize test

5. General Steps of Test Construction
• Planning of the test
• Item writing
• Preliminary Administration of the Test
• Reliability of the test
• Validity of the test
• Norms of the test
• Preparation of manual of the test

6. • Planning: The first step in the construction of a test is careful planning. At this
stage the test constructor specifies the broad and specific objectives of the test in
terms of items.
• Writing down the items: an item is defined as “a single question or task is not
often broken down into any smaller units”(Bean 1943)
The item writer must have a thorough knowledge and complete mastery of the
subject-matter.
The item writer must be fully aware of those persons for whom the test is
meant.
 After writing down the items, they must be submitted to a group of subjects
experts for their criticism and suggestions, which must be duly modified.

7. • Preliminary administration(or the Experimental Try-out) : When the items have
been written down and modified in the light of the suggestions and criticism
given by the experts, the test is said to be ready for its experimental try-out.The
main purpose of the experimental try-out of any psychological and educational
test is as given below:
1- Finding out the major weakness, ambiguities and inadequacies of the items.
2- Determining the difficult values of each item.
3-Determining the validity of each individual item.
4-Determining a reasonable time limit of the test.
5-Determining the appropriate length of the test.
6-Identifying the interconnection of items so that overlapping can be avoided.
7- Identifying any weakness and vagueness in direction or instructions of the test.

8. • Reliability of the Final Test: When on the basis of the experimental or empirical
try-out the test is finally composed of the selected items, the final test is again
administered on a fresh sample in order to compute the reliability coefficient.
The size of the sample for this purpose should not be less than 100.
• Validity of the Final test: Validity refers to what the test measures and how well it
measures. If a test measures a trait that it intends to measure well, we say that
the test is a valid one.
• Norms of the final test: Finally , the test constructor also prepares norms of the
test. Norms are defined as the average performance or score of a large sample
representative of a specified population. Norms are prepared to meaningfully
interpret the scores obtained on the test.

9. • Preparation of Manual and Reproduction of the test: The last step in test
construction is the preparation of a manual of the test. In the manual the test
constructor reports the psychodynamic properties of the test, norms and
references. This gives a clear indication regarding the procedure of the test
administration, the scoring method and time limits, if any, of the test.
• The test manual should yield information about the standardization sample,
reliability, validity, scoring process and norms.
• The test constructor, after seeing the importance and requirement of the test,
finally orders for printing of the test and the manual.