Testing
This lesson will focus on two types of testing: personality and intelligence.
Psychological tests measure an array of abilities, feelings, attitudes, behaviors and traits. Intelligence tests measure a person's cognitive ability compared to the population at large.
The purpose of these tests range from job selection and training to school placement and career guidance, and a wide range of personality and intellectual dimension.
In modern psychology, testing has been around for about 100 years. Sir Francis Galton was one of the first psychologists to rely on testing as a means of understanding people.
Personality Assessments
The first type of assessment that we will look at are personality tests. The type of personality test depends on the approach.
There are three major approaches to personality assessment: self-report inventories, projective tests and behavioral assessments.
Self-report inventories are the most frequently used assessment tool. They require people to select answers to questions to provide information about themselves. These inventories assume that an individual knows themselves better than anyone else does.
An example of self-report inventories assessment is the MMPI or the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. It is a widely used assessment and it has a multitude of questions to which the person responds true or false. An example of a question would be, "I believe that people are plotting against me..."
The MMPI gives a profile of the person on 10 clinical scales. The MMPI has been revised from the original and the new test is called the MMPI-2.
The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) is a test that assesses sixteen basic dimensions of personality. It consists of a list of 187 questions.
The NEO Personality Inventory measures the Big Five traits.
- Extraversion (your level of sociability and enthusiasm)
- Agreeableness (your level of friendliness and kindness)
- Conscientiousness (your level of organization and work ethic)
- Emotional Stability (your level of calmness and tranquility)
- Intellect (your level of creativity and curiosity)
Projective tests use ambiguous and unstructured tasks and assume that the person will project their own traits onto the test. The two that are mainly used are the Rorschach (inkblot) test and the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT).
The Rorschach test gives the person a set of inkblots, similar to this one, and they are asked what they see.
The examiner observes how the cards are held, how long they are held, what the subject responds to and then assesses the responses bases on a very involved scoring process focusing on the major themes.
It is called the Rorschach inkblot test since it was devised by Herman Rorschach.
The second type of projective test was devised by a husband and wife team, Henry and Christina Morgan.
In this test, the test taker is required to make up stories about a series of ambiguous pictures on cards. Again, the idea is that the story told is the person's own story with their needs surfacing.
There are cards for men, women and children. The full set of cards is 19, one of which is blank. Projective tests have less faking than do inventories, but they do not yield objective scores. They rely heavily on the subjective interpretation of the examiner.
Behavioral Assessments
Behavioral assessments involve techniques such as natural observation and situational testing.
Many psychologists like these kinds of tests since a genuine response of behavior is yielded. The problem is that if you use natural observation, you may not be able to observe the behavior you are looking for.
If you use the situational method, you set up a simulation and see how people react. For example, if you want to know if people have the necessary traits to work with little children, create a situation where they have to interact with children.
What problems can result by using this type of assessment?
Testing Intelligence
The second type of assessment of individual differences is intelligence testing. This is another one of the controversial issues in psychology. One of the reasons for the controversy is that there is no one accepted definition of intelligence.
Charles Spearman believed that intelligence is a general ability that is innate and acts as a specific cognitive fuel for our abilities.
L.L Thurston believed that there is a small set of cognitive factors as in verbal comprehension and perceptual abilities that make up intelligence.
Howard Gardner is a modern day psychologist who has done extensive research on the subject of intelligence. He believes that there are seven types of intelligence: linquistic, logical, kinesthetic, spatial, musical, interpersonal and intrapersonal.
Robert Sternberg first became interested in intelligence when he was in elementary school.
As a sixth grader, Sternberg suffered from test anxiety and performed poorly on an intelligence test. His score was so poor, in fact, that he had to take the test again with fifth graders. He felt more confident with the younger students and performed much better the second time.
In the seventh grade, Sternberg developed his own intelligence test, and he has continued to study human intelligence ever since.
Robert Sternberg believes that intelligence has less to do with success in the classroom and more to do with success in the real world.
He refers to the ability to achieve success in life as "successful intelligence." He believes that people have three types of intelligence and that "successfully intelligent" people learn to balance the three types of intelligence effectively.
Sternberg's three types of intelligence, called the Triarchic Theory, are: Analytical, Creative and Practical intelligence.
IQ Tests
The beginning of IQ testing began in France by a man named Alfred Binet, in 1904. He was commissioned by the French government to devise a test that would predict children's potential for progress in school.
In 1916, Lewis Terman brought Binet's test to the United States. He was at Stanford University and the test became known as the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test.
Results were presented as an intelligence quotient calculated by dividing mental age by chronological age and multiplying by 100.
In 1949, David Wechsler created a test to measure both verbal and performance skills of adults (WAIS) and a separate test for children (WAIS).
Both the Stanford-Binet and Wechsler tests are used today.
Curiously, the Flynn Effect discovered by Richard Lynn (Lynn, 1977) and documented and named for James R. Flynn (Flynn, 1984, 1987), is a world-wide increase in IQ scores of about 3 IQ points per decade. That is, people today score higher on an old IQ test than people the same age did who took the same test decades earlier.
Test bias is said to occur when a test yields higher or lower scores on average when it is administered to specific criterion groups such as people of a particular race, sex, or socioeconomic group than when averaged to an average population sample.
Negative bias is said to occur when the criterion group scores lower than average and positive bias when they score higher.
The real question then seems to be does this occur because there is a real difference in the attribute being tested or is this a result of something else such as cultural bias?
The nature-nurture issue plays a big part in the intelligence issue.
On the nature side, studies of identical twins vs. unrelated children raised together as well as apart show the influence of heredity. On the other side of the debate, parents can give their children an environment favorable to the development of intelligence and this favors the nurture side.
Aptitude and Achievement Tests
The third type of assessments is a group of tests that measure aptitude and achievement.
Aptitude tests are intended to predict ability to succeed in a given situation. They are an indication of possible success at the college level and success of being able to handle college level classes. The SAT is considered more of an aptitude test than other similar standardized tests because it measures reasoning and verbal abilities.
Achievement tests are intended to evaluate the success of specific curriculum or what you have learned. The ACT, AP exams, and placement tests are examples of achievement tests.
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