Psychological Test:
A psychological test is a standardized and objective instrument which is used to assess an individual’s standing in relation to others on some mental or behavioral characteristics.
Objectivity refers to the fact that if two or more researchers administer a psychological test on the same group of people, both of them would come up with more or less the same values for each person in the group.
In order for a psychological test to become an objective measure, it is essential that items should be worded in such a manner that they communicate the same meaning to different readers.
Standardization Procedures have to be followed to develop a psychological test. While constructing a test a systematic process has to be followed that involves a detailed analysis of items, and estimating reliability, validity, and norms of the test.
A test becomes a standardized test only when norms are developed for the test. A norm is the normal or average performance of the group. To set the norm, the test is administered on a large number of students. Their average performance standards are then set based on their age, sex, place of residence, etc.
This helps us in comparing the performance of an individual student with others of the same group. It also helps in interpreting individuals’ scores obtained on a test. Apart from norms the instructions to the test takers about how to answer the test items need to be specified in advance.
The procedure of administering the test such as environmental conditions, time limit, mode of administration (individual or group) has to be specified, and the procedure for scoring of the participants’ responses must be described.
Use of Psychological Tests:
Psychological tests are used for various purposes, such as personnel selection, placement, training, guidance, diagnosis, etc., in multiple contexts including educational institutions, guidance clinics, industries, defense establishments, and so forth.
Standardization in Psychology:
In order to evaluate performance on a psychological test one needs to compare with others performance. Thus, in order to make meaningful comparisons with test makers, first give the test to a representative sample of people so that the scores may be used to establish standards for that group. This process of defining meaningful scores relative to the pretested group is called standardization.
Every test contains a number of questions, called items, with their probable responses, which are related to a particular human characteristic or attribute.
It is important that the psychological attribute ( e.g. intelligence, personality) for which a test has been developed, should be defined clearly, and all items (questions) should be related to that attribute only.
Most often a test is meant for a particular age group.
It may or may not have a fixed time limit for answering the questions.
Characteristics of Psychological Test:
To be widely accepted all psychological tests need to have three criteria: standardized, reliable and valid.
Reliability of the test refers to the consistency of scores obtained by an individual on the same test on two different occasions. For example, you administer the test to a group of students today and re-administer it on the same set of students after some time, let us say six months. If the test is reliable, there should not be any variation in the scores obtained by the students on the two occasions.
To check a test’s reliability researchers retest people using the same test or another form of it.
a) This is called test-retest reliability, which indicates the temporal stability (or stability of the test scores over time).
b) Alternatively the researcher can split a test in half and see if the scores obtained from odd and even questions agree. This is another form of test reliability- called split-half reliability. It gives an indication about the degree of internal consistency of the test. This is based on the assumption that items of a test if they are from the same domain should correlate with each other. If they are from different domains, e.g.as are apples and oranges, then they would not correlate.
The higher the correlation between test-retest or split half scores the higher the tests’ reliability.
Validity: “Does the test measure what it claims to measure”? For example, if you have constructed a test of mathematical achievement, whether the test is measuring mathematical achievement or for example, language proficiency. The extent to which a test actually measures what it is supposed to measure or predict is its validity. eg A valid test of interest will have items which ascertain aspects related only to interest and not intelligence.
Types of Tests:
Psychological tests are classified on the basis of their language, mode of administration, and difficulty level.
A. Depending upon the language, we have verbal, non-verbal, and performance tests.
a. Verbal Tests:
These tests involve the use of words. Literacy is required for taking verbal tests as the items have to be written in some language.eg MPI or MMPI 2.
b. Non Verbal Tests:
In non-verbal tests, items are made of symbols or pictures. They can be developed for a wider age group- children and adults, even illiterates can take these tests.eg RSPM, Rorschach InkBlot Test.
c. Performance Tests:
These tests require movement/ manipulation of objects from their respective places in a particular sequence. Eg Koh’s Block design Test, Segmin form Board test.
These tests are relatively culture fair tests; can be used across different age groups. But it is time consuming to conduct and prepare the tests.It cannot be administered to a large group together.
B. Depending upon the mode of administration, psychological tests are divided into individual or group tests.
a. Individual Tests:
i. An individual test is administered by the researcher to one person at a time.
ii. In individual tests, the researcher administers the test face to face and remains seated before the test taker and notes down the responses.
iii. Individual tests are time consuming, but are important ways of getting responses from children, and from those who do not know the language
b. Group Tests:
i. Group tests can be administered to a large number of persons at the same time.
ii. In the group test, the instructions about answering the items, etc., are written on the test, which the test taker reads and answers the questions accordingly.
iii. The test administrator explains the instructions to the entire group.
iv. Group tests are easy to administer and are also less time consuming.
v. However, the responses are fraught with certain limitations. The respondent may not be motivated enough to answer the questions and may give fake responses.
C. Depending on difficulty level, psychological tests are also classified into speed and power tests.
a. Speed Tests:
i. In a speed test, there is a time limit within which the test taker is required to answer all the items.
ii. Such a test evaluates the individual on the basis of time taken to answer the items accurately.
iii. In a speed test, all the items are of the same degree of difficulty and the tasks are so easy that with unlimited time all subjects could deal with them successfully.
iv. Speed tests tend to be used in selection at the administrative and clerical level.
v. Speed tests are suitable for testing visual perception, numerical facility, and other abilities related to vocational success.
Examples: Tests of psychomotor abilities (e.g., eye–hand coordination) often involve speed.
b. Power Tests:
i. Power tests assess the underlying ability (or power) of the individuals by allowing them sufficient time, i.e. these tests do not have any time limit.
ii. In a power test, the items are generally arranged in an increasing order of difficulty.
iii. For example, if a person is unable to solve the 6th item, s/he will have difficulty in answering the subsequent items.
iv. Power tests tend to be used more at the graduate, professional or managerial level.
v. The time allowed for testing is so short, however, that even the ablest subject is not expected to finish. a power test (e.g., a general vocabulary test).
vi. Items vary in difficulty such that no subject is expected to get all items right even with unlimited time.
vii. Power tests tend to be more relevant to such purposes as the evaluation of academic achievement, for which the highest level of difficulty at which a person can succeed is of greater interest than his speed on easy tasks.
Speed tests contain more items than power tests although they have the same approximate time limit. It is, however, difficult to construct a pure speed or power test. Majority of the tests are a combination of both speed and power.
Evaluation of Psychological Testing:
a. Tests must be selected and used with great care.
b. The test user or the decision maker should not rely on any single test.
c. Test data should be combined with information about a person’s background, interests, and past performance.
d. Each method has its own limitations and advantages. Therefore, it is desirable that the researcher should not depend upon only one method. A combination of two or more methods should be used to get the real picture.
Analysis of Data:
Analysis of data is necessary for the researcher to draw conclusions. Two methodological approaches are used for analysis of data:-quantitative and qualitative methods.