PSYCHOLOGICAL

ASSESSMENT
 Why is Psychological Assessment
Important?
1. Allows us to make important decisions about
people.
e.g. Early School Placement, College Entrance Decisions, Military Job Selections

2. Allows us to describe & understand behavior

3. Measures personal attributes
4. Measures performance
5. Saves time
6. Most economical
7. It’s Scientific
Psychological
assessment
 the gathering and integration of
psychology-related data for the
purpose of making a psychological
evaluation,, accomplished through
the use of tools such as tests,
interviews, case studies, behavioral
observation and specially designed
apparatuses and measurement
procedures.
Psychological testing
 the process of measuring
psychology-related variables by
means of devices or procedures
designed to obtain a sample of
behavior
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).
Tools of psychological
assessment
 Test
 Interview
 Behavioral Observation
 Portfolio
 Case History data
 Role-play Tests
 Computer
 Unstructured methods
 Testing Activities of Psychologists
Clinical Psychologists - e.g. Assessment of Intelligence, Assessment of
Psychopathology

Counseling Psychologists
e.g. Career Interest Inventories, Skill Assessment
School Psychologists
e.g. Assessment of Academic progress, Readiness for School,
Social Adjustment

I/O Psychologists - e.g. Managerial potential,

Training Needs, Leadership Potential

Neuropsychologists - e.g., Assessment of Brain Damage, neurological

impairments.
Forensic Psychology - intersection between law and psychology --needed for
legal determinations
e.g. Assessment for risk, competency to stand trial, child custody
 LIMITATIONS AND DANGERS OF
PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING
• Unfair rejection of applicants

•Faking test responses

•Conformity
 Information About Tests
The Mental Measurement Yearbook - A guide to all currently
available psychological tests.

The MMY uses content classifications do describe tests:

1. Acheivement 2. Behavior Assessment
3. Developmental 4. Education
5. English & Language 6. Fine Arts
7. Foreign Languages 8. Intelligence and Aptitude
9. Mathematics 10. Neuropsychological
11. Personality 12. Reading
13. Science 14. Sensory-Motor
15. Social Studies 16. Speech and Hearing
17. Vocations
 History
2200 B.C.E. Proficiency testing begins in China. The Emperor evaluates
public officials every third year.
circa 1000 BC. : Chinese introduced written tests to help fill civil service
positions Civil Laws, Military Affairs, Agriculture, Geography
1800 B.C.E. Babylonians develop astrology in order to interact with the
gods and predict the future. Greeks later redefine astrology to predict and
describe personality.
500 B.C.E. Pythagoras begins practicing physiognomy to evaluate
personality.
400 B.C.E. Hippocrates introduces Humorology to the field of medicine
for the treatment of physical and mental illness.
400 B.C.E. Plato suggests people should find employment that is
consistent with their abilities.
 History
500 A.D. With the start of the Middle Ages, science takes a backseat to
faith and superstition and the history of psychological testing is
temporarily halted.
1200 A.D. Interest in individual differences emerges as people begin to
question whether those in “league with satan” did so voluntarily or
involuntarily. Trials for witchery and sorcery were common.
1265 A.D. Thomas Acquinas asserts that the notion of the human
immortal soul should be replaced by the notion of a human capacity to
think and reason.
1550 A.D. The Renaissance witnesses a rebirth in philosophy and an
appreciation for science.
1698 A.D. Juan Huarte publishes The Tyral of Wits, the first book to
propose a discipline of assessment.
1770 A.D. The cause of philosophy and sciences advances with the
writings of French, German, and English philosophers. One of these
philosophers, Rene Descartes, proposes the mind-body question.
 History
1823 A.D. The Journal of Phrenology is founded to further the study of
human abilities and human talents. Although proven unfounded by
experimentation, phrenology proposed that human qualities are localized
in concentrations of brain fiber that press outward on the skull.
1850 : The United States begins civil service examinations.
1869 A.D. Sir Francis Galton publishes a study of heredity and genius
which pioneered a statistical technique that Karl Pearson would later
call correlation.
1879 A.D. In Leipzig, Germany, Wilhelm Wundt founds the first
experimental psychology laboratory. Wundt’s structuralism relies
heavily on a tool of assessment called introspection whereby subjects try
to describe their conscious experience of a stimulus.
1885 : Germans tested people for brain damage
1890 : James Cattell develops a "mental test" to assess college students .
Test includes measures of strength, resistance to pain, and reaction time.
 History
1895 A.D. American psychologist James McKeen Cattell helped launch
the beginning of mental testing
1900 A.D. Sigmund Freud publishes The Interpretation of
Dreams which goes on to influence approaches to understanding
personality for the next 50 years.
1905 : Binet-Simon scale of mental development used to classify
mentally retarded children in France. The development of the Binet-
Simon Intelligence Scale is largely recognized as launching a new era in
measurement.
1908 A.D. Frank Parsons opens the Vocational Bureau of Boston begins
offering career guidance to young adults.
1914 : World War I produces need in U.S. to quickly classify incoming
recruits. Army Alpha test and Army Beta test developed.
1916 : Terman develops Stanford - Binet test and develops the idea of
Intelligence Quotient
 History
1919 A.D. Robert Woodworth publishes the Personal Data Sheet to help
identify Army recruits susceptible to ‘shell shock.’
1921 A.D. Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach publishes his famous
monograph, Psychodiagnostics, which would lead to the development of
the Rorschach Inkblot Test.
1926 A.D. The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is developed and
administered for the first time.
1927 A.D. Carl Spearman publishes a two-factor theory of intelligence
in which he postulates the existence of a general intellectual ability
factor and specific components of that general ability.
1938 A.D. Mental tests have reached the status of big business.
According to the 1938 Mental Measurements Yearbook, at least 4,000
psychological tests are in print.
1939 A.D. David Wechsler introduces the Wechsler-Bellevue
Intelligence Scale which was designed to measure adult intelligence.
Today, multiple versions of these tests are in publication and are the
 History
1943 A.D. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory was published.
1949 A.D. The first version to the Wechsler Intelligence Tests for
children was published.
1949 A.D. The 16PF Questionnaire, 1st Edition is released for public
use.
1955 A.D. The first version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Tests was
published.
1962 A.D. Katherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Meyers publish the
Meyers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).
1962 A.D. Warren T. Norman publishes his first article over the Big Five
Personality Factors.
1961-1980 : item response theory and neuropsychological testing
developed
1980 - Present : Wide spread adaptation of computerized testing.
"Smart" Tests which can give each individual different test items
develop
 Early Abuses of Tests in America (cont.)
• Robert Yerkes, a Harvard psychology prof. Convinced the Department
of War that it should test all of its 1.75 million recruits for intelligence
tests, so they could be classified and given appropriate assignments
(Goddard and Terman also chaired this committee).

• Army Alpha & Army Beta Examinations

• Produced evidence that supported segregation. Sounded dire warnings

that racial intermixture would inevitably cause a deterioration of
American intelligence. Later recanted: “without foundation” Probably
the result of cultural and language differences.
 Early Abuses of Tests in America
• Goddard (1906) began testing 378 residents and categorized them as
Idiot (ma below 2), imbecile (3-7), feebleminded (8-12), moron (foolish)

• MA four years behind, were feebleminded

• Goddard’s desire was to separate people out

Believed feeble minded people were the cause of most social problems
(thievery, laziness, alcoholism, prostitution, immorality).

• Called for the colonization of “morons” to restrict their breeding. Further, he

believed that many immigrants were feeble minded.

• Went to Ellis Island, administered tests translated from French to English to

Yiddish, Hungarian, , Italian, Russian, to farmers, laborers, who had just
crossed the Atlantic. Then interpreted results based on French norms.

• Favored “deportation for low IQ immigrants” but then also in a “humanitarian

gesture” said we might be able to use “moron laborer” if only “we are wise
 PSEUDOSCIENTIFIC METHODS
• Runes
• Geomancy
• Phrenology
• Western Astrology
• Chinese Astrology
• Palmistry
• Numerology
• Oneiromancy
• Molescopy
• Metoposcopy
• Physiognomy
RUNES – 22 pieces of small stones or
wood each with indecipherable symbol
etched on it (Norse alphabet) are laid down,
shuffled like dominoes and the querent is
asked to pick 13, place the 12 in a circle
clockwise but the reading is anti-clock
GEOMANCY – throwing a handful of
sand on the ground and interpreting the
patterns it made
PHRENOLOGY – reading the bumps on
the skull
WESTERN ASTROLOGY – birthmonth
CHINESE ASTROLOGY – birthyear
PALMISTRY/CHEIROMANCY-
reading the skin patterns on the palm, the
fingers
NUMEROLOGY – birthdate, favorite
ONEIROMANCY – dream analysis
MOLESCOPY – moles (especially on the
face)
METOPOSCOPY – reading the lines on
the forehead
PHYSIOGNOMY- face reading