Assessment Notes

Question 1

What are the purposes of assessments?

Answer 1

• Classification/Educational Placement
• Screening
• To inform instruction/intervention
• Progress monitoring

Question 2

What is the difference between psychological testing and psychological assessment?

Answer 2

Psych testing produces data

Psych assessment gives meaning to the data

Question 3

Who was the founder of the first experimental psychology lab?

Answer 3

Wilhelm Wundt

Question 4

What did Jean Esquirol use to distinguish mentally ill patients from those who were not intelligent?

Answer 4

Language abilitlies

Question 5

What is one major difference between psychology and philosophy?

Answer 5

Psychology attempts to measure things, while philosophy does not.

Question 6

What did Wilhelm Wundt believe that psychology should focus on?

Answer 6

Consciousness and immediate experience

Question 7

What concept was introduced by Sir Francis Galton?

Answer 7

Correlation

Question 8

What is Galton considered the father of?

Answer 8

The psychometric based testing movement.

Question 9

What sort of things did Wundt focus on measuring?

Answer 9

Physiological item including sensation, attention, reaction time, feelings, emotions

Question 10

What sort of things did Galton measure?

Answer 10

Sensory and physical skills across multiple generations. Things like height, weight, head size, arm span, vision, audition, motor strengths, reaction time, etc

Question 11

What was the rationale behind Galton’s measurements?

Answer 11

You learn information through your senses, so sensory and physical skills would reflect mental abilities

Question 12

What term was coined by James McKeen Catell?

Answer 12

Mental Test

Question 13

What sort of things did Catell measure?

Answer 13

The body and senses. Things like perception of size, hand strength, eyesight, hearing, sensitivity to pain, head size, color vision, naming colors, sensation areas, color preference, rate of perception/movement, rhythm and perception of time, memory.

Question 14

What was the purpose of Catell’s measurements?

Answer 14

Catell anticipated using the test as a measurement tool for diagnostic evaluation and selection.

Question 15

What were some issues with Catell’s test?

Answer 15

• Validity of these tests were limited, did not really measure academic ability
• Wissler, who was a student of Catell, found little correlation between test results and grades of college students
• Test would not be a good way to select students for college admittance

Question 16

What was Binet’s major contribution to psychological testing?

Answer 16

Binet introduced the first IQ test that was similar to modern testing.

Question 17

What was Binet’s attitude towards mentally ill patients?

Answer 17

Binet believed in humane treatment for the mentally ill and that the correct diagnosis was the first step towards humane treatment.

Question 18

Which scale, which is considered the first breakthrough in mental testing, was developed in 1905?

Answer 18

The Binet-Simon Scale

Question 19

What was one major issue of tests that were developed prior to the Binet-Simon scale?

Answer 19

The tests did not identify the higher-level cognitive abilities that were needed to identify mental illness.

Question 20

What are some defining features of the Binet-Simon Scale?

Answer 20

• Included careful instruction for administration
• Items on test are ranked in order of difficulty
• Items included following a moving object with one’s eyes, comparing two weights, replying to abstract questions, defining abstract terms, and using three words in a sentence

Stronger validity than Catell/Galton tests

Question 21

What did Louis Terman contribute to mental testing?

Answer 21

• Revised Binet-Simon Scale to include rigorous standardization procedure and comprehensive examiner’s guide
• Introduced IQ (mental age/chronological age x 100) as a measure

Question 22

What are some issues with Terman’s concept of IQ?

Answer 22

Not a valid measure. As you age, IQ will decrease.

Question 23

What test did Robert Yerkes create?

Answer 23

The Army Alpha/Army Beta

Question 24

What was the purpose of the Army Alpha/Army Beta

Answer 24

Designed to assess soldiers and determine what units they would serve in during WWII

Question 25

What are some features of the Army Alpha?

Answer 25

• Oral directions, memory for digits, arithmetical problems, synonym-antonym, analogies etc.
• Heavily language based

Question 26

What are some features of the Army Beta?

Answer 26

• Maze, digit-symbol, picture completion

- Largely non-verbal

Question 27

How does David Wechsler compare to Binet?

Answer 27

Wechsler was to adult intelligence test what Binet was to children’s intelligence test .

Question 28

What concept did Wechsler introduce, and what does it measure?

Answer 28

Deviation IQ. This measures how a patient’s IQ compares to the norm group.

Question 29

What test did Wechsler take items from in order to develop his test?

Answer 29

The Army test battery (alpha/beta)

Question 30

What was the goal of Wechsler’s testing?

Answer 30

To effectively measure intelligence in order to aid in psychiatric diagnosis

Question 31

What was an issue with Wechsler’s measure?

Answer 31

IQ does not have validity for clinical diagnosis