Types of Psych Tests

• Types of Psychological Tests

  • Individual and Group Tests
  • Instrumental or Paper and Pencil Tests
  • Achievement Tests
  • Intelligence Tests
  • Aptitude or Potential Ability Tests
  • Personality Tests
  • Interest Tests
  • Speed and Power Tests
  • Computer-Assisted Testing
• Individual tests


  • Designed to be administered individually, cannot be given simultaneously to two or more people by a single tester
  • Preferred for vocational guidance, counselling, and clinical/diagnostic work with emotionally disturbed persons
• Group tests


  • Designed to be administered to a large number of people at the same time
  • Advantageous in situations requiring testing of many people
• Instrumental tests


  • Make use of tools and usually are individual in character
  • Measure mechanical ability better by having applicants perform mechanical operations rather than answer questions
• Paper-and-pencil tests


  • Usually group tests involving written responses
  • Questions are in printed form, answers recorded on an answer sheet
• Achievement tests


  • Measure the skill or knowledge acquired as a result of training programme and on-the-job experience
  • Measure what the applicant can do
• Intelligence tests


  Measure a person's potential ability for activities requiring problem solving, adjusting to the environment, academic achievement, and other purposeful behaviours requiring thinking, reasoning, memory, synthesis of information, and learning
• Intelligence tests


  • Stanford Binet
  • Wechsler Scales
• Otis-Lennon Self-Administering Test of Mental Ability


  • Frequently used selection test
  • Highly useful for screening applicants for a wide variety of jobs not requiring extremely high intelligence
  • Group administered, takes little time to complete
  • Less useful for professional or high-level supervisory positions as it does not discriminate well at upper ranges of intelligence
• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R)


  • Lengthy, individually administered test
  • Used in industry primarily for selection of senior management personnel
  • Administration, scoring and interpretation require much training and experience on the part of the examiner
  • Includes 11 subtests in "Verbal" and "Performance" sections
• Aptitude or Potential Ability Tests


  • Measure the latent ability of a candidate to learn a new job or skill
  • Assess an individual's potentiality to learn a job through adequate training
  • Effective if applicants do not possess earlier job experience
• Differential Aptitude Test


  • Measures verbal reasoning, numerical ability, abstract reasoning, clerical speed and accuracy, mechanical reasoning, space relations, language usage - spelling and grammar
  • 50 problems to be answered in 25 minutes
• Verbal reasoning test


  • Measures ability to abstract, generalize, and think constructively rather than just vocabulary recognition
  • 50 items to be answered in 30 minutes
• Personality tests


  • Discover clues to an individual's value system, emotional reactions, maturity, and characteristic mood
  • Help assess motivation, ability to adjust to everyday life stresses, capacity for interpersonal relations, and ability to project an impressive image
• Approaches to personality measurement


  • Self-report inventories
  • Projective techniques
• Self-report inventories


  • Present a variety of items dealing with specific situations, symptoms, or feelings
  • Subjects indicate how well each item describes themselves or how much they agree with each item
  • Major problem is honesty of test takers
• Projective techniques


  • Present ambiguous stimuli like inkblots
  • Individuals project personal thoughts, desires, wishes, and feelings onto the stimuli
  • Cannot be faked as there are no right or wrong answers
• Self-report inventories


  • Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
  • Fundamental Interpersonal Relationships Orientation (FIRO)
  • California Personality Inventory (CPI)
• Interest tests


  • Assess individual predispositions, motivation, and application orientation
  • Used for vocational guidance
  • Assess preferences for daily activities and objects
• Interest inventories


  • Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (SCII)
  • Kuder Occupational Interest Survey (KOIS)
• Speed tests


  Every item is very easy, task is to complete as many items as possible in a short time
• Power tests


  Items are difficult, person is given as much time as necessary to complete them, score based on ability to answer questions correctly
• Speed tests


  • Clerical ability tests
• Power tests


  • Tweezers Dexterity Test
• Computer-assisted testing


  • Reduces time needed to take a test
  • Allows testing at any time an applicant applies, not just when a qualified administrator is available
  • Measures a wide range of abilities in a short time
  • Provides immediate feedback to the personnel department
• Types of tests by question format


  • Objective
  • Descriptive
  • Projective
• Types of tests by scoring method


  • Machine scored
  • Hand scored (Manual scoring)
• Types of tests by administration


  • Paper-and-pencil tests
  • Performance tests
• Types of tests by use


  • Selection tests
  • Classification tests
  • Placement tests