Psych. Assessment

• Psychological assessment is the gathering and integrating of psychological data for psychological evaluation, through the use of tests, interviews, case studies, behavioural observation, and specially designed apparatuses and measurement procedures.
• The process of assessment begins with a referral for assessment from a source such as a teacher, a school psychologist, a counsellor, a judge, a clinician, or a corporate human resources specialist.
• Diagnostic visual reasoning tests provide information about prior knowledge.
• Summative visual reasoning tests are given at a specific point to measure understanding.
• Visual reasoning tests can also be classified as diagnostic, formative, and summative.
• Visual reasoning tests the ability to analyze visual information and solve problems based on visual reasoning.
• In a spiral visual reasoning test, the test becomes progressively difficult as the test takers take several sections which are spiral in nature.
• Formative visual reasoning tests are assessments during the instructional process.
• Different techniques are used depending on the goal of assessment and the resistance/ state of client.
• Visual reasoning tests can be classified as spiral or cyclical.
• Visual reasoning tests can be administered to one individual or several subjects at a time.
• Psychological assessment is a systematic, objective procedure for obtaining a sample of behaviours, relevant to cognitive or affective functioning, and for scoring and evaluating those samples according to standards.
• The diagnostic or predictive value of a psychological test depends to the degree to which it serves as an indicator of a relatively broad and significant area of behaviour.
• Testing and assessment have different objectives and processes.
• Therapeutic psychological assessment, assessment with therapeutic component, educational assessment, use of tests and tools to evaluate academic abilities or skills, retrospective assessment, evaluative tools to draw conclusions about psychological aspects of a person as they existed at some point in time, remote assessment, use of psychological evaluation to gather data and draw conclusions about a remote subject, and ecological momentary assessment are different types of assessment.
• The process of assessment includes conducting a clinical interview, choosing a battery of tests, administering, scoring, and interpreting tests, integrating and conceptualization, writing psychological assessment report, and providing feedback to the client/referral source.
• Psychological assessment tools include tests, interviews, case studies, behavioural observation, and specially designed apparatuses and measurement procedures.
• The test is defined simply as a measuring device/procedure.
• Standardization in testing involves uniformity of procedures in administration, scoring and interpretation.
• Norms are derived from normative or the standardized sample.
• When scores are standard, there is a defined mean and a defined standard deviation.
• Normative tests compare test-taker against peers while ipsative tests compare test-takers against themselves.
• Intelligence tests are designed to measure variety of mental function such as reasoning, comprehension, judgement while personality tests measure traits that are relative over time.
• Among widely used aptitude test are mechanical, clerical, musical, and artistic aptitudes.
• During WW1, a personality questionnaire called Personality Data Sheet was created by Robert S. Woodworth as a rough screening device for identifying seriously disturbed men who would be disqualified for military service.
• Speed tests are concerned with how many questions you can answer correctly in allotted time (short in time) while power tests have enough time limit to complete a small yet complex questions (enough time).
• Norms versus criterion-referenced tests compare the test scores of group to others (ex: SAT, IQ test) and tests scores are used to generate a statement about the behavior that can be expected of a person with that score (ex: NCAE, quiz).
• An early precursor of personality testing is illustrated by Emil Kraepelin’s use of free association test with psychiatric patients.
• Tests can be classified as norms versus criterion-referenced, objective versus projective, and aptitude versus achievement.
• Standardization gives meaning to raw scores which, on its own, has no meaning.
• Objective tests require a response to a structured set of instructions (ex: true/false, yes/no) while projective tests are given ambiguous context to afford a response (ex: RIT, TAT, SACH).
• Statistical investigations on the nature of intelligence, especially using factor analysis lead to the development of multi-aptitude batteries (Differential Ability Test).
• Psychologists also saw the need for special aptitude tests to supplement global intelligence tests.
• The Army test started as a group of IQ tests.
• Aptitude tests are used to predict the likelihood to pass/perform in a future endeavor while achievement tests measure what examinee has already learned in general.
• Verbal tests require test-takers to problem solve using words and letters while nonverbal tests use pictures and diagrams.
• The results of the Army Alpha and Army Beta tests are general routine testing and non-language scale employed for illiterates and foreign-born recruits unable to take a test in English.
• Standardization is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments.
• Consistency and objectivity of how tests are administered and scored are important aspects of standardization.
• Alfred Thomas Binet, a French psychologist, was appointed to a commission charged with devising method for evaluating children who, due to mental retardation and other developmental delays, could not profit from regular classes and would profit from special classes.