Testing and Assessment in Industrial and Organizational Psychology - Article Example

Psychological Testing and Assessment Selection Paper Resources for Selecting Test and Assessments Just like in other fields of profession and study, psychological testing and assessments have certain standards to assist in proper design and execution of tests and assessments. The standards provide counselors and test takers as well as assessors with tools and strategies to select and run effective tests and assessments. Counselors have the responsibility of finding and designing the best test and/or assessment criteria that fits the client’s situation. Proper selection of tests and assessments depends on analysis of items that form the basis of a given test or assessment. An expectancy table provides an indication or prediction of the possibility that the scores of a person taking test will lie within interval on the measuring criterion that qualify categorization as failing, passing or acceptable. For instance, an expectancy table applied in experimental test on personnel in an employment setting may show that the higher the score of a worker on a new test is a prelude that the worker may be gain approval as successful. Commonly used expectancy tables include Naylor-Shine tables and Taylor-Russell tables (Cohen, Swerdlik & Sturman, 2013). Decision theory and test utility are another combination or resources that can help a counselor select a psychological test or assessment. Decision theory provides guidelines for setting cutoff point for particular scores recorded from tests. Another tool that counselors can use in selecting a psychological test or assessment is the Brogden-Cronbach-Glaser formula (Ployhart & MacKenzie, 2011). This is mostly useful in calculating the amount of dollar of utility retrievable from the use of particular instrument selected under a given condition. Issues That a Counselor Should Consider In Selecting Psychological Test for a Client A counselor selecting a psychological test for a client needs to consider the four issues that include difficult-index of an item, reliability and validity indices of items and discrimination index. To determine an item’s difficulty index, one has to calculate the proportion of the number of test takers that answered an item in correct way. Usually, a lower case “p” helps in denoting item difficulty with subscript to show an item’s number. Cohen, Swerdlik and Sturman (2013) educate that the value of item index can range from zero incase everyone failed the item and one incase everyone passed the item. The larger the item difficulty index, the easier is the item, and the smaller the item difficulty index, the tougher the item. Easier items scored by all people and difficult items failed by all test takers are inappropriate for designing tests and/assessments. Item reliability index is another issue to consider when selecting psychological tests and/or assessments that indicates the internal consistency imminent in a psychological measurement. Higher indices eludes that a test has greater internal consistency. According to Cohen, Swerdlik and Sturman (2013), internal consistency is the product of correlation and the standard deviation between the test total score and the item score. Item validity index is another issue that counselors should consider when selecting psychological test and assessments. This helps counselors to measure the degree to which a test is measuring the thing it really purports to measure (Cohen, Swerdlik & Sturman, 2013). The higher the validity index of an item the greater the criterion related validity of a test. Determining validity index of an item is particularly important when a test developer intends to maximize the criterion-related validity for a given test. The last issue that counselors should consider when selecting a test and/or assessment is item-discrimination index. This measures the degree to which an item separates or distributes between the low and high scorers on a whole test. Cohen, Swerdlik and Sturman (2013) define item discrimination index is a measure of item of item discrimination and denoted by lower case‘d’ (d). It compares performance on a given item with performance in the lower and upper regions of distribution continuous scores on a test. Concisely, discrimination index on an item is a measure of the variation between the proportion of lower scorers who answer an item correctly and high scorers who answer an item correctly. Higher d indicates that large number of high scorers gave correct answers on an item, and this validates a test or assessment. When d for a given item is a negative value, then it is good to take caution since it means that lower scorers are likely to give correct answers than high scorers. Determining Appropriateness of a Test on a Client It is usually necessary for counselors to investigate and determine the appropriateness of a given test on particular clients. Good and effective test for one client may be bad and ineffective for another client with a similar or different case problem. Utility is the general term used to refer to the appropriateness and usefulness of a test or assessment used for psychometric purposes. One aspect of utility that counselors can use to determine appropriateness of psychological measurements in a client is psychometric soundness (Grimm & Widaman, 2012). A test or assessment is psychometrically sound for a particular purpose if its reliability and validity coefficients are within acceptable upper limits. When a test or assessment tool lies within the acceptable highs of validity and reliability indices, then it is appropriate for use for given client and a given purpose. A test or assessment has good psychometric soundness and utility if their use in certain situations can assist in making of competent decision. Another way of determining appropriateness of a test or assessment for a given client is consideration of cost implications. Cost here refers to economics that revolve around money, and covers things like losses or expenses. According to Hubley and Zumbo (2013), money is necessary in a test to help in buying of test instruments, and access computerized test processing, interpretation and scoring among others, payment of test professionals, facility rental, mortgage, insurance, legal fees, licensing and other normal costs of doing business. A good test should consider the total costs required for a given test and be within the affordability of a given client. Very expensive costs that a client can afford are likely to fail due to financial constraints. Cohen, Swerdlik and Sturman (2013) add that benefits determination is another way of determining the appropriateness of a given test or assessment for a given client. With benefits, a counselor has to measure if the benefits of a test justify the costs incurred in administering, scoring and interpretation of a given test or assessment. A counselor has to evaluate the costs incurred in testing and compare with the benefits derivable from the given test (Sireci & Sukin, 2013). Here, benefits are both economic and noneconomic. A good test or assessment should have benefits outweigh costs. References Cohen, R., Swerdlik, M. and Sturman, E. (2013). Psychological Testing and Assessment: An introduction to Tests and Measurement. 8th Ed. Avenue of Americas, NY: McGraw-Hill Publishers. Grimm, K. J., & Widaman, K. F. (2012). Construct validity. In H. Cooper, P. M. Camic, D. L. Long, A. T. Panter, D. Rindskopf, K. J. Sher, ... K. J. Sher (Eds.) , APA handbook of research methods in psychology, Vol 1: Foundations, planning, measures, and psychometrics (pp. 621-642). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association. doi:10.1037/13619-033 Hubley, A. M., & Zumbo, B. D. (2013). Psychometric characteristics of assessment procedures: An overview. In K. F. Geisinger, B. A. Bracken, J. F. Carlson, J. C. Hansen, N. R. Kuncel, S. P. Reise, ... M. C. Rodriguez (Eds.) , APA handbook of testing and assessment in psychology, Vol. 1: Test theory and testing and assessment in industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 3-19). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association. doi:10.1037/14047-001 Ployhart, R. E., & MacKenzie, W. J. (2011). Situational judgment tests: A critical review and agenda for the future. In S. Zedeck, S. Zedeck (Eds.) , APA handbook of industrial and organizational psychology, Vol 2: Selecting and developing members for the organization (pp. 237-252). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association. doi:10.1037/12170-008 Sireci, S. G., & Sukin, T. (2013). Test validity. In K. F. Geisinger, B. A. Bracken, J. F. Carlson, J. C. Hansen, N. R. Kuncel, S. P. Reise, ... M. C. Rodriguez (Eds.) , APA handbook of testing and assessment in psychology, Vol. 1: Test theory and testing and assessment in industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 61-84). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association. doi:10.1037/14047-004 Read More