Psych Ass Kaplan

• Test


  A measurement device or technique used to quantify behavior or aid in the understanding and prediction of behavior
• Item


  A specific stimulus to which a person responds overtly; this response can be scored or evaluated (for example, classified, graded on a scale, or counted)
• Psychological test or educational test


  A set of items that are designed to measure characteristics of human beings that pertain to behavior
• Ability tests


  Contain items that can be scored in terms of speed, accuracy, or both
• Achievement


  Previous learning
• Aptitude


  The potential for learning or acquiring a specific skill
• Intelligence


  A person's general potential to solve problems, adapt to changing circumstances, think abstractly, and profit from experience
• The Chinese had a relatively sophisticated civil service testing program

  More than 4000 years ago
• Use of test batteries (two or more tests used in conjunction) was quite common during the Han Dynasty


  206 B.C.E. to 220 C.E.
• A national multistage testing program involved local and regional testing centers equipped with special testing booths during the Ming Dynasty


  1368–1644 C.E.
• Charles Darwin's highly influential book, The Origin of Species, was published in 1859
• Francis Galton set out to show that some people possessed characteristics that made them more fit than others, a theory he articulated in his book Hereditary Genius, published in 1869
• James McKeen Cattell coined the term mental test in 1890
• Wilhelm Wundt set up a laboratory at the University of Leipzig in 1879 and is credited with founding the science of psychology
• Alfred Binet developed the first major general intelligence test in conjunction with the French physician Theodore Simon
• Binet-Simon Scale


  The first version of the intelligence test, published in 1905, contained 30 items of increasing difficulty and was designed to identify intellectually subnormal individuals
• Standardization sample


  A representative sample that comprises individuals similar to those for whom the test is to be used
• Mental age


  A measurement of a child's performance on the test relative to other children of that particular age group
• L. M. Terman of Stanford University revised the Binet test for use in the United States in 1916, known as the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale
• Robert Yerkes headed a committee of distinguished psychologists who developed the Army Alpha and the Army Beta tests during World War I
• The Woodworth Personal Data Sheet, the first structured personality test, was developed during World War I
• The Rorschach Inkblot Test was first published by Herman Rorschach of Switzerland in 1921 and was later introduced to the United States by David Levy
• The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) was developed by Henry Murray and Christina Morgan in 1935
• The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) began a new era for structured personality tests in 1943
• Factor analysis


  A method of finding the minimum number of dimensions (characteristics, attributes), called factors, to account for a large number of variables
• Woodworth Personal Data Sheet

  An early structured personality test that assumed that a test response can be taken at face value
• Rorschach Inkblot Test


  A highly controversial projective test that provided an ambiguous stimulus (an inkblot) and asked the subject what it might be
• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)


  A projective test that provided ambiguous pictures and asked subjects to make up a story
• Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)


  A structured personality test that made no assumptions about the meaning of a test response. Such meaning was to be determined by empirical research
• California Psychological Inventory (CPI)


  A structured personality test developed according to the same principles as the MMPI
• Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF)

  A structured personality test based on the statistical procedure of factor analysis
• Descriptive statistics


  Methods used to provide a concise description of a collection of quantitative information
• Inferential statistics


  Methods used to make inferences from observations of a small group of people known as a sample to a larger group of individuals known as a population
• Magnitude


  The property of "moreness" - a scale has the property of magnitude if we can say that a particular instance of the attribute represents more, less, or equal amounts of the given quantity than does another instance
• Equal intervals


  A scale has the property of equal intervals if the difference between two points at any place on the scale has the same meaning as the difference between two other points that differ by the same number of scale units
• Absolute 0


  Obtained when nothing of the property being measured exists
• Nominal scales


  Used to name objects, do not have the property of magnitude, equal intervals, or an absolute 0
• Ordinal scale


  Has the property of magnitude but not equal intervals or an absolute 0, allows ranking but not meaning of differences
• Interval scale


  Has the properties of magnitude and equal intervals but not absolute 0
• Ratio scale


  Has all three properties: magnitude, equal intervals, and an absolute 0