Talk:Psychological testing/Archive 1

Psychological Assessment - Psychological Testing
These two topics require seperate articles with cross-references between them. A test is a component of an assessment. they are not the same thing. Fremte 04:40, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Projective tests
It is simply false to say that projective tests "are less amenable to the development of norms." That statement reflects a fundamental lack of knowledge of research over the past 30 years on what have traditionally been called "projective" tests. The Rorschach is quite amenable to norms. And just because other projectives may not have adequate norms doesn't mean that they cannot have them just as easily as an "objective" test. Current researchers are working on better norms for the TAT. It is also misleading to make a blanket statement that "responses are most often qualitatively rather than quantitatively evaluated". The old concept of differences between "objective" and "projective" tests in terms of subjective (i.e., arbitrary) interpretation of responses by the examiner is quite outdated. The fundamental difference between the two types of tests is in the response process, not necessarily in the interpretive process. Tests like the MMPI-2 have a finite number of responses (i.e., "true" or "false"), whereas the Rorschach and the TAT have an open-ended response process. That difference does not necessarily mean that the examiner's interpretive process is arbitrary.

I will accept the statement that projectives are more time-consuming, although that is not always the case either.

I have no problem if an informed editor wishes to discuss the historical differences between "objective" and "projective" tests, but it must be done in an historical context, not as blanket statements which imply that the situation 30 years ago still exists today. Ward3001 (talk) 01:25, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Link to Test Validity
I'm working on cleaning up references to psychological and educational testing. It is appropriate that this article only addresses validity cursorily, but I disagree with the current text:

"A useful psychological measure must be both valid (i.e., actually measures what it claims to measure) and reliable (i.e., internally consistent or give consistent results over time)."

According to the latest AERA, APA, NCME Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (1999), validity is not the degree to which a test measures what it claims, but the degree to which evidence support the interpretations users make of test results. Also, the link in that sentence goes to the article on statistical validity, but it seems the new article on test validity would be more appropriate.

Also, the parenthetical on reliability should address more than internal consistency and time. It should at least also include "raters, etc."

Jmbrowne (talk) 21:02, 13 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree regarding validity, so feel free to revise the text and supply the "Standards" as a source. I also generally agree with a brief mention of other types of reliability (if sourced), but an encyclopedia article doesn't need much detail about each. Ward3001 (talk) 21:25, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Test security
Some who knows more than me should take a look at this section and do whatever to it. It's probably important for the article but don't know if it is completely accurate or enough is there. Thanks, Fremte (talk) 19:41, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Personality Measures, etc
The examples in this section include both what are traditionally considered personality measures (e.g. MMPI, MCMI) and also measures that more directly measure emotional or behavioral problems and are not considered to represent "personality" (e.g. CBCL, BDI). I think the latter should be moved to their own section rather than lumped together. If someone needs help clarifying the difference, especially since there is some overlap in content (e.g. depressive symptoms measured by the MMPI or PAI), consider them to measure chronic vs (relatively) transient pathology, respectively. I realize there's more to it than that, but I'm hardly the best person to explain it, and I think that at least gives a good starting point.

And while I'm complaining about it, how did "sexological" measures get their own section and emotional and behavioral measures didn't? psychojosh13 (talk)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.44.161.138 (talk) 14:57, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

new edit
hi everyone, i would like to edit this page by adding more information, please check out my sandbox for a review. thank youF.Moshammad (talk) 22:45, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Edit Request
I would like to make an informative addition to this page detailing the Principles of Psychological testing. The edit i would like to make is in my sandbox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Joselv83/sandbox Thank you Joselv83 (talk) 18:54, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It seems you also added this text here -- Mdd (talk) 00:06, 18 May 2013

(UTC) 13 noember 2013

Test edit removed
After moving the text adding here I have removed the text here. One way or another it is based the current Wikipedia article and earlier versions. -- Mdd (talk) 00:04, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Intelligence and psychology citations bibliography for updating this and other articles
You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of Intelligence Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence or psychology and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in these issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by suggesting new sources through comments on that page. It will be extremely helpful for articles on psychology to edit them according to the Wikipedia standards for reliable sources for medicine-related articles, as it is important to verify articles on these issues as well as possible. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 17:23, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Intelligence and psychology citations bibliography for updating this and other articles
You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of Intelligence Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence or psychology and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in these issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by suggesting new sources through comments on that page. It will be extremely helpful for articles on psychology to edit them according to the Wikipedia standards for reliable sources for medicine-related articles, as it is important to verify articles on these issues as well as possible. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 17:23, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 03:31, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

1

 * Book: Essentials of WAIS-III assessment
 * Authors: Alan S. Kaufman, Elizabeth O. Lichtenberger
 * Chapter: How to interpret the WAIS-III

2

 * Book: Handbook of psychological assessment
 * Authors: Gary Groth-Marnat
 * Chapter: Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory

3

 * Book: Essentials of MMPI-2 assessment
 * Authors: David S. Nichols
 * Chapter: The standard clinical scales

4

 * Book: Psychological testing: history, principles, and applications
 * Authors: Robert J. Gregory
 * Chapter: Tests and the testing process

5

 * Book: Psychological testing: history, principles, and applications
 * Authors: Robert J. Gregory
 * Chapter: Industrial, occupational, and forensic assessment

6

 * Book: Psychological testing and assessment: an introduction to tests and measurement
 * Authors: Ronald Jay Cohen, Mark E. Swerdlik, Edward E. Sturman
 * Chapter: Clinical and Counseling Assessment

7

 * Book: Psychological testing: principles, applications, & issues
 * Authors: Robert M. Kaplan, Dennis P. Saccuzzo
 * Chapter: Applications in clinical and counseling settings

Provide an openly accessible link...for improvement of the article. – — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.89.237.226 (talk • contribs) 16:16, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It might help if you would explain why you are requesting these materials. Is this for improvement of the article, or simply for your personal use? If it's the latter, this talk page is not a place for you to make personal requests that have nothing to do with the article. Secondly, do you actually think someone can provide you with links to entire books that are under copyright? Sundayclose (talk) 16:24, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * WP:DEADLINE and never underestimate the collaborative nature of the project, happy editing Sundayclose. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.96.58.117 (talk • contribs) 16:39, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Your response makes no sense. Could you actually address the issues that I raised? Sundayclose (talk) 16:44, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Can we add a Controversy section
Hi! I have recently been asked to fill in one of these forms during an interview process for a job. I completed the forms but found myself objecting to both the validity of the test and its use in the employment process. This experience got me interested in the use of psychology testing and I started to look for examples of where psychometric testing or rather the undue weight given to the results of these testing procedures have contributed to an injustice being perpetrated. It would be helpful to add a section to this article that highlights this (although controversy might be the wrong term since these test are just procedures and the argument stems presumably from the use of these procedures) We could cite legal cases where psychometric testing has contributed to injustice. This might be part of a wider area if controversy which results from one party claiming that they can scientifically model or test something e.g climate changes and another party claims that the system is too complicated and that the errors are unquantifiable - if so we could simply direct the reader to that controversy page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.141.8.158 (talk) 17:35, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure about the controversy element, but I think "use in employment" would be a meaningful section. ParticipantObserver (talk) 20:01, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Pop psychology quizzes
, please identify the link to the pop psychology quizzes. Are you referring to this link: https://www.psychologytools.com/download-scales-and-measures/ ? I think that is a good website. For example, it contains the Buss-Perry, a solid measure. I don't think the article should have a sentence referring the reader to Google Scholar. The sentence should be deleted. I don't think the article needs a link to PsycInfo either. Those databases can be helpful but they cover too much territory for this article. By contrast, the following link, https://www.stevenericspector.com/mental-health-assessment-archive/, is more specific and takes the reader to psychological scales that have been validated. For example, the GAD-7 and the HAM-A are valid scales that have been widely studied. I have qualms that I will mention below.

I think the real problem is that the scales in the various websites are legitimate scales on which there are validation data. The scales can work well in the hands of researchers who are investigating the personality domain a scale assesses. For example, an anxiety researcher could use the GAD-7 to study anxiety. What bothers me is that many members of the general public read WP--I obviously don't oppose the general public reading the material set here and welcome the readers. WP favors the free dissemination of accurate information. Here is my qualm. It does not make sense to me that a general reader download one of the scales and try to assess a facet of the personality of his or her friends and relatives and unintentionally harms in some way the person being assessed. Iss246 (talk) 03:26, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
 * The link I was referring to is https://www.psycom.net/quizzes, which I removed here. I saw no reference to validity data on any of those quizzes. If a website has instruments used in research, rather than used clinically, that needs to be made clear when it's linked. Regarding the general public downloading a scale, we obviously have no control over the websites or what the general public does, but I think Wikipedia has a responsibility to inform its readers about the misuse of such tools in the wrong hands. Wikipedia is a wonderful resource, but in my opinion it sometimes causes problems because uninformed editors edit articles for which they have no expertise. A classic example is Rorschach inkblot test. Non-psychologists have made a mess of that article such that the content could be very damaging for someone who uses it to try to manipulate the impression they make if they take the test. I wish psychologists could develop a Wikipedia group similar to WP:MED for the medical community on Wikipedia. That group has done a great job of keeping misinformation out of medical articles.
 * I haven't seen the psychologytools.com. Is it linked in an article? Sundayclose (talk) 04:25, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, user:Sundayclose. The Psychtools site was in the article. It was the last website in a series of websites in the section entitled "Sources of psychological tests." I checked out the website and observed that it is a commercial site. I missed it when I first reviewed the Psychological testing entry. Iss246 (talk) 02:25, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Who is Steven Eric Spector???
With regard to the addition of stevenericspector.com, I would like to know what substantially qualifies them for exemption under WP:SPS. Do they have an outstanding h-index in relevant discipline? Graywalls (talk) 09:53, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Invariance
I provided a clear, nontechnical explanation for the average reader of what is involved in invariance. user:Graywalls reverted my writing. The wording that I corrected was wrong. Invariance does not apply to one group except in the case of temporal invariance, but temporal invariance was not alluded to. Invariance applies to scale and item meanings in different demographic groups or to the same group at two or more points in time (temporal invariance). There are a number of levels of invariance stringency: configural invariance, metric invariance, and scalar invariance. That would be reader-friendly to place such text in the intro. Iss246 (talk) 02:31, 15 September 2023 (UTC)


 * You failed to cite it with proper sources the first time you made the edit and you should have waited until you're able cite it before you make change. Who are you to say existing version was wrong and your version is right without proper backing with WP:RS? Verifiability with reliable source is the foundation of Wikipedia contents. Graywalls (talk) 03:17, 15 September 2023 (UTC)


 * I wrote what I did because I knew the material and read Putnick and Bornstein among other works on the application of SEM. Don't tell me what to do. And don't tell me how to edit. I ordinarily edit a small bit at a time and layer in sources at my pace. I've got something like 16,000 edits. I have created 30+ entries and worked on many other entries. I don't need a lecture from a scavenger like you, someone who goes around looking for WP contributors to gleefully tear down. That amounts to most of what you do, Mister Know-It-All, tear down contributors five minutes after they write something instead of giving them time to make the additions they intend to make. I needed a little time to locate the proper citation (like I said, I edit a bit at a time), then you come blazing in to try to make me look bad. Don't fuck with me. WP is a terrific collaboration, but weaselly editors like you drain the joy out of contributing to the encyclopedia. עלה צען זולן בויך אין ארויספאלן, נישט איינער זאל עם בלייבן אויף צאנווייטונג Iss246 (talk) 03:48, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Please keep cool and refrain from casting aspersions. Your edits are helpful and meaningful, but Graywalls's removal of unreferenced content was an entirely reasonable action. Not everyone can operate on your timeline, and there is no way for another editor to know what additions you intend to make following an edit. Their actions certainly did not warrant a personal attack. ParticipantObserver (talk) 07:54, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
 * For a little further clarity: many editors review new edits on pages that they follow and undo unsourced additions as they appear. It is unreasonable to ask editors that edit in that way to change their approach such that they need to remember to check days later if your edits are still unsourced or not. You can certainly undo Graywalls's reverts and--while doing so--add the sources. None of these actions appear to be preventing you from making the small edits that you would like to make, in essentially the way that you would like to make them. ParticipantObserver (talk) 07:59, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
 * , you're exaggerating things quite a bit. You claim I reverted you five minutes later, but edit records show I reverted your edit 118 minutes after your addition of unreferenced contents. That's quite a difference. You just admitted above this was based on your own knowledge from prior reading. None of us should be introducing contents off top of our head based on what we know. One editor calling out existing unsourced contents and putting their preferred version of unsourced contents is not an improvement. For all I know, the original version could have been right, your version could be right, or they could both be wrong and this is why its essential we only introduce sourced contents. Unsourced claims may be subject to removal and such removal is acceptable under our verifiability guidelines, especially for NEWLY introduced unsourced contents. If you don't have the sources ready but you're going to find sources later, then there's your sandbox to jot down your thoughts. Graywalls (talk) 08:48, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
 * User:Graywalls, don't give me a self-important, lawyerly lecture on editing. I've got pretty good understanding of the SEM material in question and I have made many contributions to the encyclopedia. You keep following me around looking to reverse my edits. On and on and on. Your officious language is a cover for your "essential" BS. Your MO from your WP page is how you like to delete edits, as you wrote on that page, "I write stuff and I erase stuff on Wikipedia." The "erase stuff" is what you mainly do. If you think something an editor wrote is not sufficiently clear for the reader, then edit it for clarity rather than erase it. Somebody put effort into contributing material to WP. Don't tell me apologetically that my "original source may have been right." You just take a wreaking ball to what other editors contribute, including my contributions. If you think something is missing from a contribution and you know who the contributor is, send a polite note regarding the contribution. I can't stand wreaking-ball editors like you who gleefully delete the work of others. You poison WP. Iss246 (talk) 14:47, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
 * User:ParticipantObserver, I have no beef with you. You're an honest broker who does his/her best and avoids overly bureaucratic language in dealing with disagreements. Iss246 (talk) 14:52, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, User:Iss246. I don't want to start any beef with you, I am just unsure precisely why these kinds of edits are so upsetting to you, and I'd like to know so that (when possible) I can avoid upsetting people myself. I've had a couple of conflicts along similar lines, with editors upset that I was 'stonewalling' articles or otherwise limiting the creation of new material. And I'd like to keep doing what I'm doing, but ideally without causing these kinds of conflicts. So I jumped into this conversation because I would readily have made the exact same edits Graywalls was making. You can see from my contributions that the primary way that I engage with WP is effectively what you're saying Graywalls is doing: I mostly erase stuff (mostly because it's unsourced or fails verification).
 * Unless I'm missing something, the only change to your workflow this kind of edit should cause is that--when you are ready to add the source--you would need to click the 'undo' button instead of the 'edit' button, no? And then as part of the undo, you could add the source. The content you've written would all still be there, in the edit history, and ready to draw upon. I don't think (or at least I hope) that there was no intention here to make you look bad or otherwise interfere with your actions in a substantive way, which would obviously be another beast entirely. ParticipantObserver (talk) 08:46, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you user:ParticipantObserver for your comment. I appreciate what you wrote. Sometimes when an editor adds text to an article, but the text is somewhat amiss, I try to help the editor by any one of a number strategies, among which include editing to make the added text more clear, searching the Internet to find a document that supports the text, or adding a reminder to add a source. I don't like to delete text wholesale, with some exceptions. I would like to be treated similarly.


 * If I come across text that has been left unsourced for a week or is plain wrong, then I may delete the text.


 * I also note that I have had the unfortunate experience of having been followed by a troll for several years. The troll, after he was kicked off WP, gave himself a new name and continued his mischief. The cycle got repeated and repeated until finally the troll quit WP. That experience makes me weary of a new editor who follows me, and consistently reverses my edits particularly when I know what I wrote is accurate. When that happens, it gets me angry. The subject matter I add to in psychology articles is subject matter I know well. I may have added text that is essentially correct but had not yet completed a search my home library or my digital library for the right source because I am juggling several other tasks. I would be more receptive when another editor waits a couple of days to delete text I wrote but had not yet sourced or writes something like the word SOURCE next to that text I wrote as a reminder to access the source (although usually I nail down the source the same day). Please know that I strive for both accuracy and clarity when I write. And want my efforts respected. Iss246 (talk) 03:16, 18 September 2023 (UTC)