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In depth lecture notes from tests and measurements class at Southeastern.
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What are Psychological Tests? Why might tests be administered? Psychiatric hospitals/clinics Medical hospitals/clinics Child and Family Centers K-12 Schools Colleges/Universities Criminal and Civil Courts Businesses Similarities among Psychological Tests All require a person to perform a behavior ( an observable and measurable action ) Behavior used to make inferences about some psychological construct What are Psychological Tests?
Differences among Psychological Tests Behavior performed Construct measured and outcome predicted Content Administration and format Scoring and interpretation Psychometric quality The History of Testing: Late 19th Century: Intelligence Tests Alfred Binet and the Binet-Simon Scale Lewis Terman and the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales David Weschler and the Weschler-Bellevue Intelligence Scale and the Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale Early 1900s: Personality Tests Robert Woodworth and the Personal Data Sheet Carl Jung and the Rorschach Inkblot Test Henry Murray and C. D. Morgan and the Thematic Apperception Test Early/mid-1900s: Vocational Tests U.S. Employment Service and the General Aptitude Test Battery Testing Today Testing is a part of the American culture Multibillion dollar business Thousands of commercially available and unpublished tests
You have to gather research and evidence to determine that the test is predicting what it is supposed to predict
Comparative decisions Decisions made by others by comparing test scores of various people to see who has the best score Absolute decisions Decisions made by others by comparing an individual’s test score to a minimum score needed Who Uses Tests and for What Reasons? Different professionals, in different settings, use psychological tests Educational settings Admissions decisions Retaining/promoting students Place students into special ed programs (gifted/need more help) Diagnose learning disabilities Award scholarships Identify career interest Clinical settings Diagnosis Treatment planning Assess if treatment is working or not Self-discovery Organizational settings Job selection Determine training needs
Succeed in training/learn something Management development Performance appraisals Practice:
16.In organizational settings, human resources professionals and industrial- organizational psychology practitioners use psychological tests for all of the following purposes EXCEPT diagnosing disorders.
Ethics: should or ought/should not Law: must/must not Some areas of overlap/differences Three Seminal Documents Hippocratic Oath Patient welfare Confidentiality Nuremberg Code Medical experiments that were extremely unethical Participation must be voluntary Participant must know the nature, purposes, duration of research Belmont Report Basic ethical principles Ethical Codes: Purposes General context: doing good Education, sensitizing
Also dealing with conflicts Protecting the profession Treatment complaints (in some codes) Guide decision making, do no harm Major Sources for Psych. Testing Standards for Educational & Psychological Testing Professional Association Codes APA - the Ethics Code Others, e.g. ACA, NASP Some Other Sources Other Codes, Other APA Statements Books on principles and cases APA Code Structure of 2002 Code: Preamble, General Principles, Standards, Complaint Procedures Parts Applicable to Testing APA Code: General Principles Beneficence → do good Fidelity and Responsibility → establish relationships of trust Integrity → honest and truthful Justice → treat people fairly
Tarasiff exception → student murdered by another student Test construction/publication → develop high quality test, market them responsibly, anticipate an excuse and guard against it Test security → keeping test secure Generalizations (special issues) Automated scoring → certain software to complete scoring Unqualified persons → can’t let people interpret test who aren’t qualified Test User Qualifications The general issue User vs. purchaser The three-tier system Level A → career counseling Level B → some technological experience Level C → IQ tests, personality tests The Interface of Tests and the Law: Four Major Contexts Employment → hiring, fire people, promote people, job selection, education, court cases and legal standards Education (placement, certification) → High School Diploma, special education programs Forensics → court systems (legal actions) Mandated test programs → state testing (LEAP and iLEAP)
Three Sources of Laws Statutory law; legislation → rules that originate with a legislative body (house of representatives, senate, etc.) Administrative law; regulations → how to implement a law Case law; court cases → state or federal Laws: Some Terms U.S.C - U.S. Code = Federal Legislation P.L. - Public Law = Federal Legislation CFR - Code of Federal Regulations 5th Amendment = do not have to self incriminate yourself, impacts forensics evaluations 6th Amendment = everyone accused of a crime has a right to counsel Major Laws related to testing 14th Amendment Historical context Due process clause → criminal commitment, civil commitment, confidence to stand trial, right to refuse treatment Equal protection clause “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
Rehab Act (1973) and ADA (1990) Original context/purpose: Make public facilities (Rehab Act) accessible to handicapped, then many non-public facilities. Original emphasis on physical barriers. Relevance for testing: Expansion of definition of “handicapped” or “disabled” to mental conditions, e.g., learning disability. Implications for test administration. Handicapped/Disabled in Education (PL 94-142, IDEA, IDEIA) Original context/purpose: concern for education of physically handicapped and mentally retarded, then greatly expanded to other types of disabilities, e.g., learning disabilities. Requirements for IEP (Individualized Education Program) Allows services to be available for all children who need them Provide federal funds to help the states educate the students with disabilities Creates treatment plans for specific individuals Tests have to be administered by a trained person FERPA (Buckley)/HIPPA Original context/purpose: Individual’s right to see what’s in their records Right to maintain confidentiality of those records; and restrict access Relevance for testing:
Records include test information No Child Left Behind Law (NCLB) Basic notion: All children must be brought to “proficient” level in certain skills (by 2014) Operation left to the states Great influence in public education Currently, many executive branch waivers Griggs vs Duke Power Question: Is it legal to use an “intelligence test” for hiring/promotion when it adversely affects a protected group? Ruling: if you are going to use a test in hiring, it has to be actually used for the job (not discriminate) Debra P. v Turlington and GI Forum v TEA Pass rates varied by groups Was use of the tests illegal? Ruling: you can use a functional literacy test but you have to make sure the test is tied with what you actually taught in school In Texas In both cases: legal But, in FL, need to delay implementation due to history of segregation Importance of “instructional validity”
Question: What other disabilities might qualify? Importance of accurate measurement of IQ Forensic Application of Tests Definition of forensic psychology Two legal terms Insanity Competency to stand trial Three special areas of concern Custody Dangerousness Abuse And beyond … Generalizations about the Interface of Testing and the Law The law confirms the importance of technical quality (psychometrics) and professional competence The law has significantly influenced test development (especially fairness/bias) and usage The interface is complex. Requires specialized knowledge; calls for caution in generalizing from single cases
Variable - anything that can take on more than one value Measurement - assigning numbers to variables. Helps to make sense of information. Sometimes we do this to create placeholders Levels of Measurement: The relationship among numbers assigned to information Nominal →naming the data - categories - qualitative Ex: nurses in a hospital and their stress level 1 →non-nurses 2 →nurses Ordinal →putting variables into an order - ranked Ex: ranking color of cars you like best Interval →assign a value to an outcome that is based on some continuum that is based on some intervals - no real zero Ex: temperature Ratio →we have equal intervals and zero actually means something Ex: having zero rainfall today ** Every level gives you more information The more information you get the more accurate you will be Procedures for Interpreting Test Scores Frequency Distribution →visual representations of a group of scores Frequency tables Histograms
