Testing is the term used to refer to everything from theadministration of a test (as in “Testing in progress”) tothe interpretation of a test score.

A psychological test is essentially an objective andstandardised measure of a sample of behaviour

Psychological Assessment is the gathering andintegration of psychology -related data for the purpose ofmaking a psychological evaluation that is accomplishedthrough the use of tools such as tests, interviews, casestudies, behavioural observation, and specially designedapparatuses and measurement procedures

Thus today, Assessment is a much broader term

In general, the process of assessment begins with areferral for assessment from a source such as a teacher, aschool psychologist, a counsellor, a judge, a clinician, or acorporate human resources specialist

Different Techniques are used depending on the goal ofassessment and the resistance/ state of client

Objective-gauge a construct or trait………v/s answer areferral problem

Process- group or individual v/s individualizedexploration

Role of Evaluator-practically replaceable v/s key figure

Chinese used testing some 4000 years ago for jobselection purposes and appeared to be a test-dominatedsociety

Civil service examinations designed to chooseMandarins and all of the Emperor’s officials wereexamined every third year, including job sample tests toidentify proficiency in arithmetic, archery,music,writingand ceremonial skills

Candidates were also assessed for their ability tomemorize and understand the Confucian classics, aswell as in essay and poem composition.

Formal procedures were established, includingindependent assessments by at least two assessors andthe standardization of test conditions, as is done oftentoday

By the seventeenth century post-Renaissancephilosophers began to look at ideas, events andphenomena in more scientific ways, leading to a newway of thinking called ‘empiricism’.

When Charles Darwin provided an account of themechanisms of evolution between 1858 and 1877,

he influenced early psychology. His principal thesis wasthat members of a species exhibit variability ofcharacteristics and this variability results in some beingbetter suited than others to any particular set ofenvironmental conditions

Experimental psychologists such as Gustav Fechner,Wilhelm Wundt and Hermann Ebbinghaus, discoveredthat psychological phenomena could be described inrational and quantitative ways.

Sir Francis Galton was the cousin of Charles Darwinwho adopted the new scientific ideas which he thoughtcould be proven only by careful enquiry and used hiswealth to pursue this

he became obsessed with making all kinds ofmeasurements of people in his research laboratory.

He was the first to emphasize the importance ofindividual differences, created the first tests of mentalability and was the first to use questionnaires.

he founded psychometrics and differential psychology

His application of exact quantitative methods resultedin the discovery of a numerical factor which he calledcorrelation, specifying the degree of relationshipbetween individuals or any two attributes

Alfred Binet influenced by Galton’s work, wasappointed to a ministerial commission to study theplight of retarded school children to ensure they wouldhave an adequate education

He constructed a series of tests, including short, variedproblems about daily life, as well as tests of cognitiveprocesses such as memory

They were made up of a series of tasks thought to berepresentative of a typical child’s abilities at differentages

Binet ranked the tests in accordance with age levelscorresponding to performances by the average child. Indoing so he distinguished between the mental ageattained on the scale and the chronological age of achild

The outcomes, developed with his assistant Theodore Simon, were received throughout the world with wide acclaim. Binet and Simon published their last revision in 1911.

In the United States Lewis Terman (1877–1956)standardized the Binet–Simon scale using samplingmethods, resulting in what has since been called the

Stanford–Binet Intelligence Test .

Galton’s works also influenced Karl Pearson wh As aresult he wrote papers which contributed to thedevelopment of regression analysis and the correlationcoefficient (Pearson Product–Moment CorrelationCoefficient), and discovered the chi-square test ofstatistical significance.

One of the most productive scaling theorists was Louis Thurstone (1887–1955), a mechanical engineer, who made important contributions to psychology

University of Chicago- Psychometric Laboratory.

designed techniques for measurement scales, for the

assessment of attitudes and developed test theory

David Wechsler (1896 – 1981) – published the Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Scale in 1939 (DuBois, 1970). he scale composed of subscales so that a give type of task or item was administered only once to the subject

The instrument yielded a verbal IQ, a performance IQ and a total IQ

Modifications were made so that the scale was more suitable for adults than earlier scales had been, which was known as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

Raymond Cattell had a major influence on thetheoretical development of personality as he sought toapply empirical techniques to understand its basicstructure (Cattell, 1965).

He extended existing methods of factor analysis andexplored new approaches to assessment, and has been

unrivalled in the creation of a unified theory ofindividual differences, combining research inintelligence with that of personality.

Georg Rasch (1901–1980) is best known for hiscontribution to psychometrics through thedevelopment of a group of statistical models known asRasch models (Rasch, 1980).

Early Group Tests

Among the first to develop group tests was Pyle, who in 1913 published schoolchildren age norms for a battery consisting of measures such as memory span, digit-symbol substitution, and oral word association (Gregory, 2007), which was intended to be used diagnostically (DuBois, 1970).

the Army Alpha and the Army Beta- The eight tests were (1) following oral directions, (2), arithmetical reasoning, (3) practical judgment, (4) synonym-antonym pairs, (5) disarranged sentences, (6) number series completion, (7) analogies, and (8) information.

The eight tests were (1) following oral directions, (2),arithmetical reasoning, (3) practical judgment, (4)synonym-antonym pairs, (5) disarranged sentences, (6)number series completion, (7) analogies, and (8)information.

he Beta was a nonverbal group test designed for use withilliterates and recruits whose first language was notEnglish. It consisted of various visual-perceptual andmotor tests such as tracing a path through mazes andvisualizing the correct number of blocks depicted in athree-dimensional drawing (Gregory, 2007).

Although Galton had devised an assessment method toinvestigate imagery, it was not until WWI that R.S.Woodworth applied the technique to develop aninstrument to detect Army recruits for theirsusceptibility to emotional stability

The Personal Data Sheet consisted of 116 questions thatrequired the subject to answer Yes or No. The questionsinvolved fairly serious symptomatology

Ten months prior to his death, in June 1921, Rorschachpublished Psychodiagnostics, the monograph of thefamous Inkblot Test, which became a milestone in thehistory of projective testing

The Rorschach Inkblot test consisted of 10 inkblots,which was formed by dribbling ink on a piece of paperand folding the paper in half, producing relativelysymmetrical designs

Klecksography was a popular game among Swiss children that consists of making inkblots on a piece of paper and folding it to construct forms of an object, such as a bird or a butterfly

Myers-Briggs, Keirsey's Temperments

Myers-Briggs Personality Tests, is influenced by thework of Carl Jung and is made up of 16 distinctpersonality types. These personality types are derivedfrom four main variables:

Intorvert/extrovert (I/E)

Sensor/ Intuitive (S/N)

Feeling/Thinking (F/T)

Judger/Perceiver (J/P)

Using Woodworth’s procedure of writing items that seemed to have clinical significance and establishing validity by contrasting the responses of normal and abnormal subjects, S. R. Hathaway and J. C. McKinley published the MMPI in 1943

Structured clinical Interview for DSM II (SCID III),

Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale

Hamilton Depression Rating Scale

Edward K. Strong, a psychologist whose professional endeavor was to measure vocational interests, devoted 36 years to the development of empirical keys for the modified instrument known as the Strong Vocational Interest Blank (SVIB) since its first publication in 1927

Strong- Campbell Inventory

Kuder Prefernce Record

Luria – Nebraska

Halsted Reiten

Nimhans battery

The first person to emphasize that different cultureshave alternative concepts of what an ‘intelligent person’is and that traditional tests measure only skills valued inacademia and work in industrialized societies wassometimes referred to as ‘the test guru.’

Anastasi undertook major studies of test construction,

test misuse, misinterpretation and cultural bias, andwas the author of the influential book PsychologicalTesting (1988),which has been the core text in this fieldsince its first edition in 1954