Psychological Testing

Introduction and administration

• Introduction to Psychological Testing

• NVTI

• BMCT

• Interest Inventory

• Adjustment Inventory

• CLAT

• Benefits of Psychological Testings

Meaning of psychological testing/ assessment

• A psychological testing/ assessment is

• the attempt of a skilled professional, usually a psychologist/ trained counsellor,

• to use the techniques and tools of psychology to learn either general or specific facts about another person,

• either to inform others of how they function now,

• or to predict their behavior and functioning in the future.

Features of psychological testing/ assessment

• Frequently uses tests

• Involves defined procedures or steps

• Leads to redefining the problem, breaking the problem down into smaller pieces, or highlighting some part(s) of the problem

• Requires the counsellor to consider, evaluate, and integrate the data

• Is less routine and inflexible, more individualized.

NVTI or Non-Verbal test of Intelligence

• NVTI or Non-Verbal test of Intelligence is

• an intelligence test that measures nonverbal reasoning.

• The purpose of this test is to isolate and assess a student's visual learning skills.

• In this test, tasks are designed to remove verbal intelligence from the assessment of a student's reasoning abilities.

Why Nonverbal Tests Are Needed:

• In general, nonverbal assessments attempt to remove language barriers in the estimation of a student's intellectual aptitude.

• This is especially helpful in assessing students without speech or who have limited language ability,

• those with deafness or who are hard of hearing,

• and those with English language limitations.

Structure of NVTI

• The NVTI employs eight common, fairly universal gestures to communicate to the examinee (e.g., pointing to stimuli to be attended to; raising hands and shrugging shoulders to indicate a solution is sought).

• The NVTI requires approximately 30 to 45 minutes to administer, and yields a comprehensive Full Scale IQ, as well as subscale and subtest standard scores.

• Of the six NVTI subtests, three assess short term memory and three assess reasoning

What is measured in NVTI

• Nonverbal Intelligence Tests measures several types of nonverbal reasoning skills.

• Through pictures and pointing responses, students solve problems using analogies, classification skills and logical sequences.

• Analogies assesses the student's ability to recognize common features between unlike objects.

• Categorization tasks require students to identify common attributes for sorting pictured objects.

Bennett Mechanical Comprehension Test (BMCT)• Bennett Mechanical Comprehension Test (BMCT) is used to

determine the student’s aptitude for learning mechanical skills and the ability to apply them in real life situations. It measures a complex set of abilities.

• Mechanical knowledge

• Spatial intelligence

• Mechanical reasoning

• BMCT was designed and adopted by the United States military in 1940. Its parameters for mechanical reasoning were redefined in 1990s.

A professional Bennett Mechanical Comprehension test contains categories of the 135 questions into 18 content areas.

• Acoustics -3 questions

• Inertia – 5

• Belt Drive - 2

• Levers – 8

• Center of Gravity – 7

• Optics – 6

• Centrifugal Force – 5

• Planes and Slopes – 2

• Electricity – 6

• Pulley Systems – 10

• Gears - 10

• Resolution of Forces – 6

• Gravity and Velocity – 9

• Shape and Volume - 7

• Heat- 8

• Structures – 12

• Hydraulics – 16

• Miscellaneous – 14

Structure of Bennett Mechanical Aptitude Test

• It is comprised of two alternative forms (Form S and Form T).

• Each form has 68 questions and can be solved within 30 minutes.

• It is a written test to be taken with pencil on paper or mouse on computer.

• The questionnaire is filled with a number of small puzzles and mechanical quizzes.

• Questions are based daily life mechanical tools and equipment such as pulleys, livers, shafts etc.

• Simple questions about dynamics, heat flow, electricity and other basic physical issues.

• Student is required to answer the questions by applying mechanical reasoning.

Score Interpretation and Reliability

• The Bennett Mechanical Test is reported to have high level of reliability.

• Testing industry, the psychologists and potential employers give solid weightage to the results and predictions of the Bennett test.

• For jobs requiring multiple aptitudes, the BMCT is most effective when used in combination with other tests.

Interest Inventory:• An interest inventory is a testing instrument designed for

the purpose of measuring and evaluating the level of an individual's interest in, or preference for, a variety of activities; also known as interest test.

• Testing methods include direct observation of behavior, ability tests, and self-reporting inventories of interest in educational, social, recreational, and vocational activities.

• The activities are related to occupational areas, and help give vocational guidance.

• The first widely used interest inventory was the Strong Vocational Interest Blank, developed in 1927 by E.K. Strong.

Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory• In 1974 the Strong test was merged into the Strong-

Campbell Interest Inventory, which was further revised in 1981.

• The test contains 325 activities, subjects, etc.

• Takers of this test are asked whether they like, dislike, or are indifferent to 325 items representing a wide variety of school subjects, occupations, activities, and types of people.

• They are also asked to choose their favorite among pairs of activities and indicate which of 14 selected characteristics apply to them.

• Examinees are also scored on six "general occupational themes" derived from J.L. Holland's interest classification scheme (realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional).

Kuder Preference Record,

• The other most commonly administered interest inventory is the Kuder Preference Record, originally developed in 1939.

• The Kuder Preference Record contains 168 items, each of which lists three broad choices concerning occupational interests, from which the individual selects the one that is most preferred.

• The test is scored on 10 interest scales consisting of items having a high degree of correlation with each other.

• A typical score profile will have high and low scores on one or more of the scales and average scores on the rest.

Other interest inventories

• Other interest inventories include the Guilford-Zimmerman Interest Inventory, the G-S-Z Interest Survey, the California Occupational Preference Survey, the Jackson Vocational Interest Survey, and the Ohio Vocational Interest Survey.

• There are also inventories designed especially for children, for the disabled, and for those interested in the skilled trades.

USE of Interest Inventory

• Interest inventories are widely used in vocational counseling, both with adolescents and adults.

• Since these tests measure only interest and not ability, their value as predictors of occupational success, while significant, is limited.

• They are especially useful in helping high school and college students become familiar with career options and aware of their vocational interests.

• Interest inventories are also used in employee selection and classification.

Adjustment Inventory:

• Adjustment Inventory is a psychological test often in the form of a questionnaire

• utilized to evaluate someone's sentiment

• or their level of social adjustment in contrast with their peers, family members, friends.

The Weinberger Adjustment Inventory (WAI)

• The Weinberger Adjustment Inventory (WAI; Weinberger & Schwartz, 1990) is an assessment of an individual's social-emotional adjustment within the context of external constraints.

• There are 4 subscales:• Impulse control (e.g., "I say the first thing that comes into my mind without

thinking enough about it".),• Suppression of aggression (e.g. "People who get me angry better watch

out".),• Consideration of others ( e.g., "Doing things to help other people is more

important to me than almost anything else".) • Temperance. • There are a total of 23 items in the WAI.

Adjustment Inventory by Hugh M Bell

• Adjustment Inventory by Hugh M Bell provides four separate measure for personal and social adjustment.

• Home Adjustment: A high score on this shows an unsatisfactory home adjustment to home surroundings, while low score shows satisfactory home adjustment.

• Health Adjustment: A high score on this shows an unsatisfactory health adjustment while low score shows satisfactory health adjustment.

• Social Adjustment: High score shows respondent to be submissive and retiring, while low scorers are aggressive in social context.

• Emotional Adjustment: High scorers tend to be emotionally unstable, while low scorers tend to be emotionally stable.

Key features of the Hugh Bell Adjustment Test:

• Suitable for both sexes for school and college students

• High reliability of scores makes possible the comparison between two individuals

• Use of small letters a, b, c and d for the four different adjustments helps counselor to relate particular question to each measure.

• Inventory can be done by individual itself, but counselor should read instructions to the person before the text is conducted

• There is no time limit, but normally it is completed with 25 minutes.

CLAT- Conceptual Level Analogy Test:

• Concept Formation is an important part of Cognition

• enabling students to integrate multiple ideas and facts and reduces the burden on memory and attention to detail.

• Concepts are groupings of facts, attributes, steps in a process, or ideas that commonly go together

• There are several types of concepts

• Concrete concepts - can be seen, touched, heard, or felt

• Abstract concepts - no actual sensory characteristics (Example: concept of due process in government)

• Verbal concepts - most often thought about with language (Example: concept of "democracy")

• Nonverbal concepts - lend themselves to visualization (Example: concepts of proportion)

• Process concepts - describe a mechanism or phenomenon in which critical features of the concept are actually steps in a process (Example: concept of internal combustion)

• How is CLAT conducted?• Conceptual Level Analogy is based on identity of relation between any two

ordered pairs. • For example, "Hand is to palm as foot is to ____?" These questions were

usually given in the Aristotelian format:• HAND : PALM : : FOOT : ____• Those competent in English language will immediately give the right answer

to the analogy question (sole). • But for those with low English Language proficiency, it is more difficult to

identify and describe the exact relation that holds both between hand and palm, and between foot and sole.

• Thus CLAT uses Analogy to result in abstraction, each of which are different cognitive processes, and analogy is often an easier one.

• Now a days, CLAT is conducted via a computer algorithm used to deduce human-level performance on multiple-choice analogy questions from the SATtest.

Benefits of CLAT

• Chronic tenuosity (partial grasp)- children may proceed through their education with only minimal grasp of concepts

• Overreliance on rote memory (echoic grasp) - students may seek to compensate for their dysfunctions by deploying memorizations and imitation as substitutes for understanding

• Poor conceptual comprehension monitoring - students may fail to understand that they don't understand concepts

• Problems with verbal concepts - students have difficulty with highly verbal concepts

• Problems with nonverbal concepts - students have difficulty with concepts that need to be thought about without much infusion of language

• Trouble with processing concepts - problems linking a sequence of steps to a process and an outcome

• Content-specific conceptual difficulties and strengths - trouble forming concepts only within a circumscribed content area

• Trouble communicating concepts (re-synthetic) difficulty explaining the concepts in their own words

• Excessively concrete conceptualization - difficulty rising above the level of concrete concept formation

Benefits of Psychological Testing in various fields

• Incase of Lower school students, it helps in understanding the root cause of a difficulty faced by a student, so that the teacher can plan the best possible support in the classroom. E.g for a student with Attention Deficit Syndrome, teacher can plan activity based learning

• Incase of disorders like dyslexia, dyscalculia etc. Examination Boards grant certain compensations like extra time, use of calculator, no negative marks in case spelling mistakes. The Psychological test are a valid evidence of such difficulties, which helps students score better and also suggest occupational therapy to over come them

• Provides a detailed snapshot of academic and psychological strengths and weaknesses.

• Standardized tests like BMCT and CLAT help in employee recruitment, such that right candidate is appointed for particular job

• Tests like NVTI, Interest Inventory and Adjustment Inventory help create pro-active teams to increase overall productivity of the organization.

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