Psychological note please read of uo are interest, Lecture notes of Physics

Download Psychological note please read of uo are interest and more Lecture notes Physics in PDF only on Docsity! Chapter 2 Testing and Assessment The roots of contemporary psychological testing and assessment can be found in early twentieth-century France. In 1905, Alfred Binet and a colleague published a test designed to help place Paris schoolchildren in appropriate classes. Binet’s test would have consequences well beyond the Paris school district. Within a decade, an English language version of Binet’s test was prepared for use in schools in the United States. 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. Psychological testing provided this methodology. During World War II, the military would depend even more on psychological tests to screen recruits for service. Following the war, more and more tests purporting to measure an ever-widening array of psychological variables were developed and used. 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 A psychological test is essentially an objective and standardized measure of a sample of behavior (Anastasi & Urbina, 1997). Keeping in view this definition we can say that a psychological test has the following three defining characteristics:  A psychological test is a sample of behavior  The sample is obtained under standardized conditions.  There are established rules for scoring information obtained from the behavior sample. During World War I, the process of testing aptly described the group screening of thousands of military recruits. However, by World War II a semantic distinction between testing and a more inclusive term, assessment, began to emerge. 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. As summarized in Assessment of Men (OSS Assessment Staff, 1948) and elsewhere (Murray & MacKinnon, 1946), the assessment data generated were subjected to thoughtful integration and evaluation by highly trained assessment center staff. The OSS model—using an innovative variety of evaluative tools along with data from the evaluations of highly trained assessors—would later inspire what is now referred to as the assessment center approach to personnel evaluation (Bray, 1982). Behavior sampling Every psychologist test requires the examinee to respond in a certain manner. The individual’s responses are used to measure some specific attributes (e.g. creative thinking) or to predict some specific outcome (e.g. success in a professional college). A psychological test, however, cannot be an exhausting, to measure English vocabulary of an individual, one procedure can be to prepare an exhaustive list of all the words he/she knows. Such a procedure would be highly accurate, but impractical. A psychological test attempts to approximate this laborious procedure by collecting a systematic sample of behavior. In this case, the vocabulary test might include a list of 50 words, varying in the frequency of usage and difficulty level, keeping in view the age and ability level of the target population. Another implication of using behavior samples for measurement of psychological attributes is that the quality of a test is largely determined by the representativeness of this sample of behavior. Standardization Standardization of a test refers to uniformity of procedure in administering and scoring the test. The condition under which a test is administered are certain to affect the behavior of the examinee. A student, for example, is likely to do better on an academic achievement test that is given in a normal class room than student would perform if the same test were given in hot, noisy class. Standardization of the condition under which a test is given is, therefore of immense importance. To ensure uniformity of testing conditions, the test constructer provides detailed directions with regard to test administration, test materials, time limit, practice exercises, oral instruction, and ways of handling respondent queries. Reliability The term reliability in psychological research refers to the consistency of a research study or measuring test. Reliable instrument is one that performs in consistent, predictable ways. For example, if a person weighs themselves during the course of a day they would expect to see a similar reading. Scales which measured weight differently each time would be of little use. Of course, it is unlikely the exact same results will be obtained each time as participants and situations vary, but a strong positive correlation between the results of the same test indicates reliability. There are two types of reliability – internal and external reliability. Internal reliability assesses the consistency of results across items within a test. External reliability refers to the extent to which a measure varies from one use to another.  Split-half method: The split-half method assesses the internal consistency of a test, such as psychometric tests and questionnaires. There, it measures the extent to which all parts of the test contribute equally to what is being measured. This is done by comparing the results of one half of a test with the results from the other half. A test can be split in half in several ways, e.g. first half and second half, or by odd and even numbers. If the two halves of the test provide similar results this would suggest that the test has internal reliability.  Test-retest: The test-retest method assesses the external consistency of a test. Examples of appropriate tests include questionnaires and psychometric tests. It measures the stability of a test over time. A typical assessment would involve giving participants the same test on two separate occasions. If the same or similar results are obtained then external reliability is established. The disadvantages of the test-retest method are that it takes a long time for results to be obtained. extent to which particular questions precipitate long pauses or signs of emotion in response. Of course, interviews need not involve verbalized speech, as when they are conducted in sign language. Interviews may be conducted by various electronic means, as would be the case with online interviews, e-mail interviews, and interviews conducted by means of text messaging. In its broadest sense, then, we can define an interview as a method of gathering information through direct communication involving reciprocal exchange. Interviews differ with regard to many variables, such as their purpose, length, and nature. Interviews may be used by psychologists in various specialty areas to help make diagnostic, treatment, selection, or other decisions. So, for example, school psychologists may use an interview to help make a decision about the appropriateness of various educational interventions or class placements. A court-appointed psychologist may use an interview to help guide the court in determining whether a defendant was insane at the time of a commission of a crime. A specialist in head injury may use an interview to help shed light on questions related to the extent of damage to the brain that was caused by the injury. A psychologist studying consumer behavior may use an interview to learn about the market for various products and services as well as how best to advertise and promote them. An interview may be used to help human resources professionals make more informed recommendations about the hiring, fi ring, and advancement of personnel. In some instances, especially in the field of human resources, a specialized interview called a panel interview may be employed. The Portfolio Students and professionals in many different fields of endeavor ranging from art to architecture keep files of their work products. These work products—whether retained on paper, canvas, film, video, audio, or some other medium— constitute what is called a portfolio. As samples of one’s ability and accomplishment, a portfolio may be used as a tool of evaluation. The appeal of portfolio assessment as a tool of evaluation extends too many other fields, including education. Some have argued, for example, that the best evaluation of a student’s writing skills can be accomplished not by the administration of a test but by asking the student to compile a selection of writing samples. Also in the field of education, portfolio assessment has been employed as a tool in the hiring of instructors. An instructor’s portfolio may consist of various documents such as lesson plans, published writings, and visual aids developed expressly for teaching certain subjects. All of these materials can be extremely useful to those who must make hiring decisions. Case History Data Case history data refers to records, transcripts, and other accounts in written, pictorial, or other form that preserve archival information, official and informal accounts, and other data and items relevant to an assessed. Case history data may include files or excerpts from files maintained at institutions and agencies such as schools, hospitals, employers, religious institutions, and criminal justice agencies. Other examples of case history data are letters and written correspondence, photos and family albums, newspaper and magazine clippings, and home videos, movies, and audiotapes. Work samples, artwork, doodling, and accounts and pictures pertaining to interests and hobbies are yet other examples. Case history data is a useful tool in a wide variety of assessment contexts. In a clinical evaluation, for example, case history data can shed light on an individual’s past and current adjustment as well as on the events and circumstances that may have contributed to any changes in adjustment. Case history data can be of critical value in neuropsychological evaluations, where it often provides information about neuropsychological functioning prior to the occurrence of a trauma or other event that results in a deficit. School psychologists rely on case history data for insight into a student’s current academic or behavioral standing. Case history data is also useful in making judgments concerning future class placements. Behavioral Observation If you want to know how someone behaves in a particular situation, observe his or her behavior in that situation. Such “down-home” wisdom underlies at least one approach to evaluation. Behavioral observation, as it is employed by assessment professionals, may be defined as monitoring the actions of others or oneself by visual or electronic means while recording quantitative and/or qualitative information regarding the actions. Behavioral observation is often used as a diagnostic aid in various settings such as inpatient facilities, behavioral research laboratories, and classrooms. In addition to diagnosis, behavioral observation may be used for selection purposes, as in corporate settings. Sometimes researchers venture outside of the confines of clinics, classrooms, workplaces, and research laboratories in order to observe behavior of humans in a natural setting—that is, the setting in which the behavior would typically be expected to occur. This variety of behavioral observation is referred to as naturalistic observation. As an example, one team of researchers studying the socializing behavior of autistic children with same-aged peers opted for natural settings rather than a controlled, laboratory environment. Behavioral observation as an aid to designing therapeutic intervention has proven to be extremely useful in institutional settings such as schools, hospitals, prisons, and group homes. Role-Play Tests Role play may be defined as acting an improvised or partially improvised part in a simulated situation. A role-play test is a tool of assessment where in assesses are directed to act as if they were in a particular situation. Assesses may then be evaluated with regard to their expressed thoughts, behaviors, abilities, and other variables. Role play is useful in evaluating various skills so, for example, grocery shopping skills could conceivably be evaluated through role play, and a trip to the supermarket could be saved. Of course, role play may not be as useful as the real thing in all situations. Still, role play is used quite extensively, especially in situations where it is too time-consuming, too expensive, or simply too inconvenient to assess in a “real” situation. Astronauts in training may be required to role play many situations “as if” in outer space. The “as if” scenario for training purposes in this case will result in cost savings of many millions of dollars; the cost of actually putting such trainees in the real situation would be . . . well, astronomical. Role play as a tool of assessment may be used in various clinical contexts. For example, it is routinely employed in many interventions with substance abusers. Clinicians may attempt to obtain a baseline measure of abuse, cravings, or coping skills by administering a role-play test prior to therapeutic intervention. The same test is then administered again subsequent to completion of treatment. Computers as Tools Computers can serve as test administrators (online or off) and as highly efficient test scorers. Within seconds they can derive not only test scores but patterns of test scores. Scoring may be done on-site (local processing) or conducted at some central location (central processing). The acronym CAPA refers to the term computer assisted psychological assessment. By the way, here the word assisted typically refers to the assistance computers provide to the test user, not the test taker. Another acronym you may come across is CAT, this for computer adaptive testing. The adaptive in this term is a reference to the computer’s ability to tailor the test to the test taker’s ability or test taking pattern. So, for example, on a computerized test of academic abilities, the computer might be programmed to switch from testing math skills to English skills after three consecutive failures on math items. CAPA opened a world of possibilities for test developers, enabling them to develop psychometrically sound tests using mathematical procedures and calculations so complicated that they may have taken weeks or months to use in a bygone era. It opened a new world to test users, enabling the construction of tailor-made tests with built-in scoring and interpretive capabilities previously unheard of. In What Types of Settings Are Assessments Conducted, and Why? Educational settings You are probably no stranger to the many types of tests administered in the classroom. As mandated by law, tests are administered early in school life to help identify children who may have special needs. In addition to school ability tests, another type of test commonly given in schools is an achievement test, which evaluates accomplishment or the degree of learning that has taken place. Some of the achievement tests you have taken in school were constructed by your teacher. Other achievement tests were constructed for more widespread use by educators working with measurement professionals. In the latter category, acronyms such as SAT and GRE may ring a bell. The term diagnostic test refers to a tool of assessment used to help narrow down and identify areas of deficit to be targeted for intervention. In educational settings, diagnostic tests of reading, mathematics, and other academic subjects may be administered to assess the need for educational intervention as well as to establish or rule out eligibility for special education programs. Schoolchildren receive grades on their report cards that are not based on any formal assessment. For example, the grade next to “Works and plays well with others” is probably based more on the teacher’s informal evaluation in the classroom than on scores. On any published measure of Psychological testing is not a single test or even a single type of test. It encompasses a whole body of dozens of research-backed tests and procedures of assessing specific aspects of a person’s psychological makeup. Some tests are used to determine IQ, others are used for personality, and still others for something else. Psychological testing is divided into four primary types: Interview, Assessment of Intellectual Functioning (IQ), Personality Assessment, and Behavioral Assessment. In addition to these primary types of psychological assessment, other kinds of psychological tests are available for specific areas, such as aptitude or achievement in school, career or work counseling, management skills, and career planning. Interview In an interview the individual under assessment must be given considerable latitude in “telling his story.” Interviews have both verbal and nonverbal (e.g., gestural) components. The aim of the interview is to gather information, and the adequacy of the data gathered depends in large part on the questions asked by the interviewer. For example In an employment interview the focus of the interviewer is generally on the job candidate’s work experiences, general and specific attitudes, and occupational goals. In a diagnostic medical or psychiatric interview considerable attention would be paid to the patient’s physical health and to any symptoms of behavioral disorder that may have occurred over the years. Two broad types of interview are face to face and clinical interview. In the interview designed for use in research, face-to-face contact between an interviewer and interviewee is directed toward eliciting information that may be relevant to particular practical applications under general study or to those personality theories (or hypotheses) being investigated. While in clinical interview, mostly focused on assessing the status of a particular individual (e.g., a psychiatric patient); such an interview is action-oriented (i.e., it may indicate appropriate treatment). Both research and clinical interviews frequently may be conducted to obtain an individual’s life history and biographical information (e.g., identifying facts, family relationships), but they differ in the uses to which the information is put. The clinical interview is a core component of any psychological testing. Some people know the clinical interview as an “intake interview”, “admission interview” or “diagnostic interview” (although technically these are often very different things). Clinical interviews typically last from 1 to 2 hours in length, and occur most often in a clinician’s office. Many types of mental health professionals can conduct a clinical interview — psychologists, psychiatrists, clinical social workers, psychiatric nurses, amongst others. The clinical interview is an opportunity for the professional to gather important background and family data about the person. Think of it as an information-gathering session for the professional’s benefit (but ultimately for your benefit). Some components of the clinical interview have now become computerized, meaning you will answer a series of questions on a computer in the clinician’s office instead of talking directly to a person. This is most often done for basic demographic information, but can also include structured diagnostic interview questions to help the clinicians formulate an initial diagnostic impression. Assessment of Intellectual Functioning (IQ) Intellectual quotient — is a theoretical construct of a measure of general intelligence. There are two primary measures used to test a person’s intellectual functions — intelligence tests and neuropsychological assessment. Intelligence tests are the more common type administered and include the Stanford-Binet and the Wechsler scales (WAIS). Neuropsychological assessment — which can take up to 2 days to administer — is a far more extensive form of assessment. It is focused not just on testing for intelligence, but also on determining all of the cognitive strengths and deficits of the person. Neuropsychological assessment is most usually done with people who have suffered some sort of brain damage, dysfunction or some kind of organic brain problem, just as having a brain hemorrhage. The most commonly administered IQ test is called the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale —Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV). It generally takes anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half to administer, and is appropriate for any individual aged 16 or older to take. This scale contains Verbal Comprehension Scale, Perceptual Reasoning Scale, Working Memory Scale, and Processing Speed Scale. Personality Assessment Personality assessment, the measurement of personal characteristics. Assessment is an end result of gathering information intended to advance psychological theory and research and to increase the probability that wise decisions will be made in applied settings (e.g., in selecting the most promising people from a group of job applicants). Personality theorists and researchers seek to define and to understand the diversity of human traits, the many ways people have of thinking and perceiving and learning and emoting. Such nonmaterial human dimensions, types, and attributes are constructs—in this case, inferences drawn from observed behavior. Widely studied personality constructs include anxiety, hostility, emotionality, motivation, and introversion- extroversion. Anxiety, for example, is a concept, or construct, inferred in people from what they say, their facial expressions, and their body movements. Personality tests provide measures of such characteristics as feelings and emotional states, preoccupations, motivations, attitudes, and approaches to interpersonal relations. There is a diversity of approaches to personality assessment, and controversy surrounds many aspects of the widely used methods and techniques. These include such assessments as the interview, rating scales, self-reports, personality inventories, projective techniques, and behavioral observation Personality is a complex combination of factors that has been developed over a person’s entire childhood and young adulthood. There are genetic, environmental and social components to personality — our personalities are not shaped by one single influence. Therefore tests that measure personality take into account this complexity and rich texture. There are two primary types of personality tests — objective, by far the most commonly used today, and projective. Objective tests include things like the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2), the 16PF, and the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III (MCMI-III). Projective tests include the Rorschach Inkblot Test, the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), and the Draw-a-Person test. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), is probably the personality inventory in widest use in the English-speaking world. Also available in other languages, it consists in one version of 550 items (e.g., “I like tall women”) to which subjects are to respond “true,” “false,” or “cannot say.” The MMPI as originally published consists of nine clinical scales (or sets of items), each scale having been found in practice to discriminate a particular clinical group, such as people suffering from schizophrenia, depression, or paranoia. In general, it has been found that the greater the number and magnitude of one’s unusually high scores on the MMPI, the more likely it is that one is in need of psychiatric attention. The California Psychological Inventory (CPI), for example, is keyed for several personality variables that include sociability, self-control, flexibility, and tolerance. Unlike the MMPI, it was developed specifically for use with “normal” groups of people. Also the 16PF measures 16 basic personality traits and can help a person better understand where their personality falls. And all of these tests include in objective tests. Projective Tests One group of assessment specialists believes that the more freedom people have in picking their responses, the more meaningful the description and classification that can be obtained. Because personality inventories do not permit much freedom of choice, some researchers and clinicians prefer to use projective techniques, in which a person is shown ambiguous stimuli (such as shapes or pictures) and asked to interpret them in some way. (Such stimuli allow relative freedom in projecting one’s own interests and feelings into them, reacting in any way that seems appropriate.) Projective techniques are believed to be sensitive to unconscious dimensions of personality. Defense mechanisms, latent impulses, and anxieties have all been inferred from data gathered in projective situations. And projective stimuli are ambiguous, they are usually administered under fairly standardized conditions. The Rorschach Inkblot Test The Rorschach inkblots were developed by a Swiss psychiatrist, Hermann Rorschach, in an effort to reduce the time required in psychiatric diagnosis. His test consists of 10 cards, half of which are in colour and half in black and white. The test is administered by showing the subject the 10 blots one at a time; the subject’s task is to describe what he sees in the blots or what they possible reinforcing components or triggers for the behavior. Behavioral assessment is naturalistic observation — that is, observing the person in a natural setting and taking notes (much like an anthropologist). Or Behavioral assessment is a method used in the field of psychology to observe, describe, explain, predict and sometimes correct behavior. Behavioral assessment can be useful in clinical, educational and corporate settings. Behavior assessment includes different methods like behavioral interviews, observational method which might be in naturalistic settings or may be in control settings, in control settings a person assess through self-monitoring. Self-monitoring is also a component of behavioral assessment. For instance, when a person is asked to keep a mood journal and track their moods over the course of a week or month, that’s a form of self-monitoring. Inventories and checklists, popular nowadays online in the form of quizzes, can also be a form of behavioral assessment. But most important test is Beck Depression Inventory which were mostly used in behavioral assessment. Subjective observation Subjective information includes what clients think about, the emotions they experience, and their worries and preoccupations. Interviews, personality inventories, and projective techniques provide indications of subjective experience, although considerable clinical judgment is needed to infer what is going on within the client from test responses. Objective observation Objective information includes the person’s observable behaviour and usually does not require the assessor to draw complex inferences about such topics as attitudes toward parents, unconscious wishes, and deep-seated conflicts. Such objective information is measured by behavioral assessment. It is often used to identify behavioral problems, which are then treated in some appropriate way. Behavioral observations are used to get information that cannot be obtained by other means. Examples of such observations include the frequency of a particular type of response, such as physical attacks on others or observations by ward attendants of certain behaviours of psychiatric patients. for example, in the case of a seven-year-old boy who, according to his teacher, is doing poorly in his schoolwork and, according to his parents, is difficult to manage at home and does not get along with other children. The following types of assessment might be considered: (1) a measure of the boy’s general intelligence, which might help explain his poor schoolwork; (2) an interview with him to provide insights into his view of his problem; (3) personality tests, which might reveal trends that are related to his inadequate social relationships; (4) observations of his activities and response patterns in school; (5) observations of his behavior in a specially created situation, such as a playroom with many interesting toys and games; (6) an interview with his parents, since the boy’s poor behavior in school may by symptomatic of problems at home; and (7) direct observation of his behavior at home. The value of behavioral assessment depends on the behaviours selected for observation. For example, if the goal of assessment is to detect a tendency toward depression, the responses recorded should be those that are relevant to that tendency, such as degrees of smiling, motor activity, and talking. Behavioral observations can be treated in different ways. One of these is to keep track of the frequency with which people make designated responses during a given period of time (e.g., the number of times a psychiatric patient makes his own bed or the number of times a child asks for help in a novel situation). Another approach involves asking raters to support their judgments of others by citing specific behavior (critical incidents); a shop foreman, for example, may rate a worker as depressed by citing incidents when the worker burst into tears. Critical incidents not only add validity to ordinary ratings, but they also suggest behavioral details that might be promising predictors of success on the job, response to psychiatric treatment, or level of academic achievement.