Quiz 3 Part 1

Question 1

Personality Tests: Projective Test - Advantages?

Answer 1

• Good tool for breaking the ice with a client (frequently used with children or with reticent adult clients). Clinician interpretations can initiate productive conversations
• Some skilled clinicians may be able to use them to get information not captured in other types of tests
• With a well-trained and talented clinician, can provide richer and more dimensional data than most objective tests

Question 2

Personality Tests: Projective Test- Disadvantages?

Answer 2

• Expensive and time-consuming
• A psychologist cannot be sure about what they mean (obviously relies on clinician interpretations), so reliability is always a concern
• Other less expensive tests work as well or better for most purposes

Question 3

4 Facts about projective tests?

Answer 3

• Projective tests provide B data
• Still used by many clinical psychologists, though not always for the same goals or theoretical reasons
• Validity evidence is scarce
• Most valid tests seem to the be the TAT and Rorschach (with one of two scoring methods

Question 4

What is the definition of Objective Tests?

Answer 4

a personality test that consists of a list of questions to be answered by the subject as true or false or on a numeric scale

Question 5

What is the validity and the subjectivity of objective test items?

Answer 5

Items are still not absolutely objective; they can be interpreted in different ways

Question 6

3 Facts about Objectives tests

Answer 6

The principle of aggregation
The average of answers to several items increases stability and reliability
Use Spearman-Brown formula to calculate reliability if items were added

Question 7

What is the rational method? (Objective test)

Answer 7

write items that seem directly, obviously, and rationally related to what is to be measured

• Based on a theory or sometimes less systematic
• Provides S data
• ***It is the most common form of test construction

Question 8

What are 4 conditions of validity for rational method?

Answer 8

Items mean the same thing to the test taker and creator
Capability for accurate self-assessment
Willingness to make an accurate report
Items must be valid indicators of the construct

Question 9

What is the factor analytic method?

Answer 9

• identify which items group together by using the statistical technique of factor analysis
  
  • Generate a long list of objective items
  • Administer these items to a large number of people
  • Analyze with a factor analysis
  • Consider what the items that group together have in common and name the factor

Question 10

Limitations of factor analytic method?

Answer 10

• The quality of information from the factor analysis is limited by the quality of items (“Garbage in, garbage out); some types of items may be over- or under-represented.
• Difficulty and subjectivity of deciding how items are conceptually related (the “objectivity” of statistical complexity can conceal the interpretive nature of the factors)
• Factors don’t always make sense

Question 11

Uses of the factor analytic method?

Answer 11

• Reduce list of traits to an essential few
• Refine personality tests
• Factors can be empirically validated

Question 12

What is the empirical method?

Answer 12

identify items based on how people in pre-identified groups respond
Steps: gather lots of items; administer items to people already divided into groups; compare the answers of the different groups; cross-validation
Not based on theory; ignores item content

Question 13

What is cross-validation?

Empirical Method?

Answer 13

determine whether the test can predict behavior, diagnosis, or category membership in a new sample

Question 14

What is the basic assumption of the empirical method?

Answer 14

-certain kinds of people have distinctive ways of answering certain questions

–MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) and SVIB (Strong Vocational Interest Blank)

Question 15

Problems with the empirical method?

Answer 15

The empirical method: implications of ignoring item content/low face validity
Can include items that seem contrary or absurd
Responses are difficult to fake
Tests are only as good as the criteria by which they are developed and/or cross-validated: The test may not work at another time, in another place, and with different people
Can cause problems with public relations or the law: People who take the test can be skeptical about whether it really measures what it is supposed to measure. Problems with the law: based on asking questions that could lead to discrimination (e.g., of religion, sexual preferences)

Question 16

how have methods been combined?

Answer 16

Generate items with rational method, analyze responses with factor analysis, correlate factors with independent criteria
Jackson’s Personality Research Form (PRF)

Question 17

What is the purpose of personality testing?

Answer 17

It’s important to know how the test will be used
Helping people (schools, career counselors, clinicians)
Assessment for selection or retention (employers, Central Intelligence Agency, military)

Question 18

Problems with personality tests?

Answer 18

Interest tests
Fields may not evolve
Increases difficulty of women and minorities joining nontraditional fields
Integrity tests: honest people have to decide whether to lie to get a high score; dishonest people don’t have this dilemma

Question 19

More potential problems with personality tests?

Answer 19

Tests are unfair mechanisms for controlling people
Traits do not matter until and unless they are tested and are social constructions
Being described by a set of scores is undignified and humiliating

Question 20

Purposes of personality testing?

Answer 20

Responses to potential problems
Criticisms are overstated
Traits are not invented or constructed; they are discovered and their nature and correlates are established empirically
It is naïve to view personality testing for hiring purposes as undignified or unethical
A good way to assess whether a person will be a successful employee

Question 21

How often and where are personality tests used?

Answer 21

frequently and by researchers, clinicians, corporations, and the military.

Question 22

What kind of test is being used if a person is asked to respond to a picture that could be described in many different ways?

Answer 22

a projective test is being used.

Question 23

What method is being used If the construct that is being measured can be determined by reading the questions?

Answer 23

the rational method of test construction has been used