Psychological Tests and Their Significance

Aptitude tests
Psychological tests to measure specific abilities, such as mechanical or clerical skills. Sometimes these tests must be specially designed for a particular job, but there are also tests available that measure general clerical and mechanical aptitudes. An example of Aptitude test is the Minnesota Clerical Test; it is a 15-minutes individual or group test in two parts: number comparison (matching 200 pairs of numbers) and name comparison. Applicants are instructed to works as fast as possible without making errors. The test measures the perceptual speed and accuracy required to perform various clerical duties. It is useful for any job that requires attention to detail in industries such as utility companies, financial institutions, and manufacturing.
An aptitude test is designed to assess what a person is capable of doing; to predict what a person is able to learn or do given the right education and instruction. It represents a person's level of competency to perform a certain type of task.
Some examples of aptitude tests include:
A test assessing an individual's aptitude to become a fighter pilot
A career test evaluating a person's capability to work as an air traffic controller
A test given to high school students to determine which type of careers they might be good at
Unlike achievement tests, which are concerned with looking a person's level of skill or knowledge at any given time, aptitude tests are instead focused on determining how capable of a person might be of performing a certain task.

A personality test is a questionnaire or other standardized instrument designed to reveal aspects of an individual's character or psychological makeup.
Personality Test topics
Norms
Test development

Test evaluation
Analysis
Non-response
Scoring

Distinction between individual and group tests:
Individual Tests: A test can be said individual test in the sense that they can be administered to only one person at a time. Many of the tests in these scales require oral responses from the examinee or necessitate the manipulation of the materials.
Individual intelligence tests are preferred by psychologist in clinics, hospitals and other settings where clinical diagnosis are made, and where they serve not only as measures of general intelligence but also as means of observing behavior in a standard situation.
Group Test: Group test was developed to meet a pressing practical need. Group test can be administered to a group of persons at a time.
Group tests were designed as mass testing instruments; they not only permit the simultaneous examination of large groups but they also use simplified instruction and administration procedures. There by requiring a minimum of training on the part of examiner.
Intelligence test- series of tasks designed to measure the capacity to make abstractions, to learn, and to deal with novel situations.
Intelligence test
A standardized test used to establish an intelligence level rating by measuring a subject's ability to form concepts, solve problems, acquire information, reason, and perform other intellectual operations.
Any of various tests designed to measure the relative intellectual capacity of a person.

Psychological testing is a field characterized by the use of samples of behavior in order to assess psychological construct(s), such as cognitive and emotional functioning, about a given individual. The technical term for the science behind psychological testing is psychometrics. By samples of behavior, one means observations of an individual performing tasks that have usually been prescribed beforehand, which often means scores on a test. These responses are often compiled into statistical tables that allow the evaluator to compare the behavior of the individual being tested to the responses of a norm group. The first large-scale mental test may have been the imperial examination system in China. The test, an early form of psychological testing, assessed candidates based on their proficiency in topics such as civil law and fiscal policies. Other early tests of intelligence were made for entertainment rather than analysis. Modern mental testing began in France in the 19th century. It contributed to separating mental retardation from mental illness and reducing the neglect, torture, and ridicule heaped on both groups. Englishman Francis Galton coined the terms psychometrics and eugenics, and developed a method for measuring intelligence based on nonverbal sensory-motor tests. It was initially popular, but was abandoned after the discovery that it had no relationship to outcomes such as college grades. French psychologist Alfred Binet, together with psychologists Victor Henri and Théodore Simon, after about 15 years of development, published the Binet-Simon test in 1905, which focused on verbal abilities. It was intended to identify mental retardation in school children.The origins of personality testing date back to the 18th and 19th centuries, when personality was assessed through phrenology, the measurement of the human skull, and physiognomy, which assessed personality based on a person's outer appearances. These early pseudoscientific techniques were eventually replaced with more empirical methods in the 20th century. One of the earliest modern personality tests was the Woolworth Personality Data Sheet, a self-report inventory developed for World War I and used for the psychiatric screening of new draftees.
A. Chinese Civil Service testing- written tests to assess language competence for prospective civil servants - as long ago as 2,000 B.C.
B. Testing & Error- mid-1800's, Wundt studied mental processes to formulate general laws of behavior - could obtain consistent results for each person from trial to trial - however, differences between people remained - viewed these individual differences as error -> other psychologists viewed individual differences as important phenomena - basis for mental tests
C. Francis Galton - thought intelligence “ran” in families, was heritable
1) development of statistics
- measure the extent to which variables are related
- allows objective measure of heritability
2) development of assessment of intelligence
- objective measure of “genius”
Contemporary theory of intelligence based on Locke’s empiricism
- newborn = tabula rasa
-> knowledge arrives via the senses
- to measure intelligence, obtain index of sensory acuity
Problem- measures of sensory abilities were not related to other measures of intelligence
- could not demonstrate validity
D. James Cattell
- studied with Wundt
- individual differences
- from Galton adopted tests of sensory/motor function
- coined term “mental tests”
-> prepared U.S. for acceptance of psychological tests
E. Alfred Binet
-> needed to identify MR children, reliably
- Binet - separating MR from mainstream children
- measured higher intellectual processes
Binet’s assumptions
1) Intelligence grows with age throughout normal childhood
2) Best index of intelligence = verbal ability
Binet-Simon scale - 1905 (revised 1908)
- 30 items in order of difficulty
- memory, judgment, & reasoning
- distinguished younger from older children
- scores increased with age for each child
- scores correlated with school grades & with teacher ratings of intelligence
- test distinguished MR from normal childrenLewis Terman (Stanford)
- Stanford-Binet (1916)
- normed on 1000 American kids, 3-13
David Wechsler
- intelligence tests for adults
- revised for children (WISC, WPPSI)
WWI - group intelligence tests
- Army Alpha - for literates
- Army Beta - for illiterates or non-English speaking recruits