CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION TO
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT
LEARNING OBJECTIVES

When you have completed this chapter, you should be able to:
• Define the basic terms pertaining to psychological and
educational tests
• Distinguish between an individual test and a group test
• Define the terms achievement, aptitude, and intelligence and
identify a concept that can encompass all three terms
• Distinguish between ability tests and personality tests
• Define the term structured personality test
MEASUREMENT

Why is there a need for

measurement in
Psychology?
Testing and Assessment
• The roots of contemporary psychological testing and
assessment can be found in early twentieth-century
France.
• When the United States declared war on Germany and
entered World War I in 1917, the military needed a way to
screen large numbers of recruits quickly for intellectual
and emotional problems
• There were tests to measure not only intelligence but also
personality, aspects of brain functioning, performance at
work, and many other aspects of psychological and social
functioning.
Psychological Testing and Assessment Defined
• The world’s receptivity to Binet’s test in the early
twentieth century spawned not only more tests
but more test developers , more test publishers,
more test users, and the emergence of what,
logically enough, has become known as a testing
enterprise.
• Testing was the term used to refer to everything
from the administration of a test to the
interpretation of a test score
• During World War II, the U.S. Office of Strategic
Services (OSS) used a variety of procedures and
measurement tools—psychological tests among
them—in selecting military personnel for highly
specialized positions involving espionage,
intelligence gathering, and the like.
• Assessment is a procedure to gather
information about people
• PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT is the gathering and
integration of psychology - related data for the
purpose of making a psychological evaluation that
is accomplished through the use of tools such as
tests, interviews, case studies, behavioral
observation, and specially designed apparatuses
and measurement procedures (Cohen & Swerdlik)
• PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT is any
systematic procedure for collecting information
that can be used to make inferences about the
characteristics of people or objects (Aera et.al).
• PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING is the process of
measuring psychology-related variables by
means of devices or procedures designed to
obtain a sample of behavior (Cohen &
Swerdlik)
• PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING is a procedure in which a
sample of behavior is obtained, evaluated and
scored using standardized procedures (Aera et.al)
• PSYCHOLOGICAL MEASUREMENT is a set of rules for
assigning numbers to represent objects, traits, attributes or
behaviors
• PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION is an activity that involves
judging or appraising the value or worth of something
The Process of Assessment
Referral for assessment/purpose of assessment

Plan data collection

Formal assessment

Communicate finding
Approaches to Assessment

A. Collaborative psychological assessment, the

assessor and assesse may work as “partners”
from initial contact through final feedback
 Therapeutic psychological assessment. Here,
therapeutic self-discovery and new
understandings are encouraged throughout the
assessment process
B. Dynamic assessment refers to an interactive
approach to psychological assessment that
usually follows a model of
Evaluation Intervention Evaluation

Used in: • Neuropsychological

• Educational • Clinical
• Correctional
• Corporate
The Tools of Psychological Assessment

TEST INTERVIEW PORTFOLIO

CASE HISTORY BEHAVIORAL ROLE-PLAY

DATA OBSERVATION TESTS

USE OF
COMPUTERS
THE TEST
TESTS

• is a measurement device or technique used to

quantify behavior or aid in the understanding and
prediction of behavior
• Item is a specific stimulus to which a person
responds overtly; this response can be scored or
evaluated
• Psychological test refers to a device or
procedure designed to measure variables
related to psychology
• A psychological test almost always involves
analysis of a sample of behavior.
• The behavior sample could range from
responses to a pencil-and-paper questionnaire
to oral responses to questions to performance
of some task.
Differerences of Psychological Tests
CONTENT

FORMAT
ADMINISTRATION PROCEDURES
SCORING AND INTERPRETATION PROCEDURES
TECHNICAL QUALITY
• The content (subject matter) of the test
will, of course, vary with the focus of the
particular test.
NEO-FFI
• The term format pertains to the form, plan,
structure, arrangement, and layout of test items as
well as to related considerations
• Tests differ in their administration procedures
• Tests differ in their administration procedures
• Tests differ in their scoring and interpretation
procedures
– Score is a code or summary statement
– Scoring is the process of assigning such
evaluative codes or statements to
performance on tests, tasks, interviews, or
other behavior samples
Category of scores:
1. Cut score (also referred to as a cutoff score or
cutoff ) is a reference point, usually numerical,
derived by judgment and used to divide a set of
data into two or more classifications
– Tests differ with respect to their technical quality
– Psychometrics may be defined as the science of
psychological measurement.
– Psychometric soundness
– Psychometric utility
Ways of administering tests:
A. Individual tests
B. Group test
 Types of Tests

ACHIEVEMENT APTITUDE INTELLIGENCE INTEREST

TESTS TESTS TESTS TESTS

PERSONALITY DIAGNOSTIC POWER

TRADE TESTS TESTS
TESTS TESTS
CREATIVITY NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL
SPEED TESTS
TESTS TESTS
Achievement test
– it measures previous learning.
– Provides a measure for the amount, rate
and level of learning, success or
accomplishment, strengths/weaknesses in
a particular subject or task
– Assess mastery and knowledge of subjects
Aptitude test

– measures potential for acquiring a specific skill.

– People who take it might not be aware of their
potentials. Once these potentials are identified
by the test, they can be encouraged to develop
it.
– It can predict an individual’s ability to succeed in
a specific academic or vocational area
Intelligence test
– measures potential to solve problems, adapt to
changing circumstances, and profit from experience.
– It is controversial because:
• Failures in IQ tests are caused not only by lack of
ability but by other factors.
• There has been a tendency to link judgments
about human worth with IQ test results.
• Cultural relativity of intelligence has also been
overlooked
– It can be an individual or group IQ test
Interest inventories
– it measures an individual’s performance for certain
activities or topics and thereby help determine
occupational choice or make career decisions.
– These tests are based upon the explicit assumption
that interest patterns determine and therefore also
predict job satisfaction
– It also provides information that can help identify
unrecognized interest, verify claimed interest, and
contrast interest with abilities and achievements.
Personality test
– it measures traits, qualities, attitudes or
behaviors that determine a person’s
individuality.
– It can measure overt or covert dispositions
and levels of adjustments
– This information helps to predict behavior
– It comes in different varieties, checklist,
inventories, and projective techniques.
Trade test

– this test determine skills, special abilities that

make an individual for a job.
Diagnostic test
– it can uncover and focus attention on
weaknesses of individuals for remedial
purposes.
Power test

– it requires the examinee to exhibit the extent or

depth of his understanding or skill.
– It provides enough time for examinees to
attempt all items, but is instructed in a way that
no test taker is able to obtain perfect score.
Speed test
– it requires the examinee to complete many items as
possible
– It typically contains items of uniform and generally
simple level of difficulty
– Since the item attempted tend to be correct, an
examinee’s score on speed test largely reflect speed of
performance.
– It has a restricted time to examinees must be able to
complete most or all of the items in such test, though
few examinees can be expected to complete the entire
test
Creativity test

– a test in which the individual’s ability to produce

new/original ideas, insights or artistic creations
that are accepted as being social, aesthetic or
scientific value.
– It can also assess the person’s capacity to find
unusual or unexpected solutions, especially for
vaguely defined problems
– It requires divergent thinking rather than
convergent thinking.
Neuropsychological test
– this test measures cognitive, sensory,
perceptual and motor performance to
determine the extent, locus and behavioural
consequences of brain damage, given to
persons with known or suspected brain
dysfunction.
– Specifically designed tasks are used to measure
a psychological function known to be linked to a
particular brain structure or pathway.
– A full neuropsychological assessment typically
requires 3-8 hours of one-on-one testing with an
extensive battery of measures, in formal
environment.
– Examinee must undergo comprehensive training
to make sense of the test data.
 Uses of Psychological Tests
CLASSIFICATION
PLACEMENT SCREENING CERTIFICATION SELECTION

DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT PLANNING

SELF-KNOWLEDGE
PROGRAM EVALUATION
RESEARCH
Classification

– Encompasses a variety of procedures that share

a common purpose, which is to assign a person
to one category rather than another
– The assignment to categories is not an end in
itself but the basis for differential treatment of
some kind.
The following are the varying forms of
classification:
1. Placement
– Refers to sorting of persons into different
programs appropriate to their needs/skills
2. Screening
– Refers to quick and simple test procedures to
identify persons who might have special
characteristics or needs.
3. Certification
– Determining whether a person has at least a
minimum proficiency in some discipline/activity
– Passing a certification exam confers privileges to
the persons
4. Selection
– It also has a pass/fail quality
– It also confers privileges to the person.
Diagnosis and Treatment planning

– Diagnosis conveys information about

strengths, weaknesses, etiology and best
choices for treatment
Program evaluation
– It is also used to systematically
evaluate educational and social
programs
Self-knowledge

– Psychological test also supply a potent source of

self-knowledge
Research
THE INTERVIEW
– interview as a tool of psychological assessment
typically involves more than talk
– interviews may be conducted in other formats,
such as by telephone.
– Interviews may be conducted by various
electronic means
– method of gathering information through direct
communication involving reciprocal exchange
– Interviews differ with regard to many
variables, such as their purpose, length, and
nature.
– An interview may be used to help human
resources professionals make more informed
recommendations about the hiring, firing, and
advancement of personnel
– Panel interview/Board interview - more than
one interviewer participates in the personnel
assessment
– Interviewers differ in many ways: their pacing of
interviews, their rapport with interviewees, and
their ability to convey genuineness, empathy,
and humor.
THE PORTFOLIO
– it constitute work products—whether retained
on paper, canvas, film, video, audio, or some
other medium.
– is samples of one’s ability and accomplishment
THE CASE
HISTORY DATA
– refers to records, transcripts, and other accounts
in written, p pictorial, or other form that
preserve archival information, official and
informal accounts, and other data and items
relevant to an assessee.
– Case history data is a useful tool in a wide
variety of assessment contexts, such as clinical
and neuropsychological evaluations
BEHAVIORAL OBSERVATION
– is a process of monitoring the
actions of others or oneself by
visual or electronic means while
recording quantitative and/or
qualitative information regarding
the actions.
– naturalistic observation
THE ROLE-PLAY TEST
– is a tool of assessment wherein assessees are
directed to act as if they were in a particular
situation
THE COMPUTER
– Computers can serve as test administrators
(online or off) and as highly efficient test scorers
– Scoring may be done on-site (local processing) or
conducted at some central location (central
processing).
– processing occurs at a central location, test-
related data may be sent to and returned from
this central facility by means of phone lines
(teleprocessing), by mail, or courier.
– interpretive report
– consultative report - provide expert opinion
concerning analysis of the data
– integrative report will employ previously
collected data (such as medication records or
behavioral observation data) into the test report.
– CAPA (Computer assisted psychological
assessment)
– CAT (Computer adaptive testing)
OTHER TOOLS

Biofeedback

Fable Use of Social

Assessment Media

Reenactments

Videos
• Biofeedback equipment is sometimes used to
obtain measures of bodily reactions (such as
muscular tension) to various sorts of stimuli.
• penile plethysmograph - designed to measure
male sexual arousal
WHO ARE THE PARTIES INVOLVED IN PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING?
Test developers and publishers
– create and distribute Instruments
– Some new tests were created for a
specific research study, some that
were created in the hope that they
would be published, and some that
represent refinements or
modifications of existing tests.
Test user

– used by a wide range of professionals, including

clinicians, counselors, school psychologists,
human resources personnel, consumer
psychologists, experimental psychologists, social
psychologists,
 TEST USER QUALIFICATIONS
LEVEL A LEVEL S LEVEL B LEVEL C
• Tests that can • Degree in the • License/certification • Tests that require
be adequately health care (use of tests) substantial
be • Test that require understanding of
professions, some technical testing and
administered, Training in the knowledge of test supporting
scored and use of tests construction & use psychological fields,
interpreted & of supporting together with
psychological and supervised
with the aid of experience in the
educational fieds.
the manual. use of these
devices.
Test taker

– anyone who is the subject of an assessment or

an evaluation
On the appointed day of a test administration,
testtakers may vary on a continuum with respect to
numerous variables, including:
• The amount of test anxiety they are experiencing
and the degree to which that test anxiety might
significantly affect the test results
• The extent to which they understand and agree
with the rationale for the assessment
• Their capacity and willingness to cooperate
with the examiner or to comprehend written
test instructions
• The amount of physical pain or emotional
distress they are experiencing
• The amount of physical discomfort brought on
by not having had enough to eat, having had
too much to eat, or other physical conditions
• The extent to which they are alert and wide awake
• The extent to which they are predisposed to
agreeing or disagreeing when presented with
stimulus statements
• The extent to which they have received prior
coaching
• The importance they may attribute to portraying
themselves in a good (or bad) light
• The extent to which they are, for lack of a
better term, “lucky” and can “beat the odds”
on a multiple-choice achievement test (even
though they may not have learned the
subject matter)
Psychological autopsy

– as a reconstruction of a deceased individual’s

psychological profile on the basis of archival
records, artifacts, and interviews previously
conducted with the deceased assessee or with
people who knew him or her.
Society at large
¾ Society’s demand for “some way of organizing
or systematizing the many-faceted complexity
of individual differences.”
¾ As society changes, new tests are developed
¾ Court decisions
Other parties
• Organizations, companies, and governmental
agencies sponsor the development of tests for
various reasons
In What Type of Settings are assessments conducted, and Why?
Educational settings
Type of test commonly given in schools:
• school ability tests
• achievement test evaluates degree of learning that has
taken place
• diagnostic test refers to a tool of assessment used to
help narrow down and identify areas of deficit to be
targeted for intervention.
• informal evaluation as a typically nonsystematic
assessment that leads to the formation of an opinion or
Clinical settings
– tools are used to help screen for or
diagnose behavior problems.
– The hallmark of testing in clinical settings
is that the test or measurement technique
is employed with only one individual at a
time
Counseling settings

– the ultimate objective of many such

assessments is the improvement of the assessee
in terms of adjustment, productivity, or some
related variable.
– Measures of social and academic skills and
measures of personality, interest, attitudes, and
values are among the many types of tests that a
counselor might administer to a client.
Geriatric settings
– psychological assessment is conducted to
evaluate cognitive, psychological,
adaptive, or other functioning
– At issue in many such assessments is the
extent to which assessees are enjoying as
good a quality of life as possible
Business and military settings

– Tests and assessment are used to make decision

about the careers of personnel
– a wide range of achievement, aptitude, interest,
motivational, and other tests may be employed
in the decision to hire as well as in related
decisions regarding promotions, transfer, job
satisfaction, and eligibility for further training
Governmental and organizational credentialing

– One of the many applications of

measurement is in governmental licensing,
certification, or general credentialing of
professionals
Other settings
– Assessment is conducted for the purpose
of court decision
– Tools of assessment can be found in use in
research and practice in every specialty
area within psychology
How are assessments conducted?
• Responsible test users have obligations before,
during, and after a test or any measurement
procedure is administered
• Rapport between the examiner and the examinee
is important
• Obligations range from safeguarding the test
protocols to conveying the test results in a clearly
understandable fashion.
• Assessment of people with disabilities
– alternate assessment - an evaluative or
diagnostic procedure or process that varies
from the usual, customary, or standardized way
a measurement is derived either by virtue of
some special accommodation made to the
assessee or by means of alternative methods
designed to measure the same variable/s
– It is typically accomplished by means of some
accommodation - the adaptation of a test,
procedure, or situation, or the substitution of
one test for another, to make the assessment
more suitable for an assessee with exceptional
needs.
Where to Go for Authoritative Information: Reference Sources

Test catalogues
Test manuals
Reference volumes
Journal articles
Online databases
Other sources
References:

Cohen-Swerdlik, Psychological Testing and

Assessment: An Introduction to Tests and
Measurement 7th Edition (2009) USA, The
McGraw−Hill Companies, Inc.

Kaplan, Robert & Saccuzzo, Dennis, Psychological

Testing Principles, Applications, and Issues 7th Edition
(2009) USA, Wadsworth Cengage Learning
ACTIVITY 1
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT PLAN
• By groups
• Plan assessment process for the following scenarios:
A. School setting
B. Private clinical setting
C. Industrial setting
Given the process …
- Write the reason for referral
- What tools do you think you will use?
- Describe very briefly the sequence of your data collection
- You can create a hypothetical scenario
• You will be given 30 minutes to work as a group
FORMAT

I. Reason for referral

II. Tools
III. Assessment procedure