Psychological Testing - Essay Example

There is no physician or psychiatrist at the end of these assessments. Only a paragraph or two stating that because of the answers of a specified number of questions, the person taking the quiz is or is not depressed, happy, etc. The concept of fun online surveys is great. Take a test to find a person's "RealAge" (Buchanan, 2002; Buchanan, 2003; Live Life to the Youngest with RealAge) or knowledge of books and movies, or even what job is the best, plus there are thousands more. The developers of these web sites that deal with medical issues create a very small medical disclaimer, usually at the bottom of the page, stating that the tests are for fun, and if a person has a true concern, medical attention is advised.

This covers the developer, but allows for hundreds of thousands of people to take his/her word as the word of the doctor (Buchanan, 2002; Buchanan, 2003; Live Life to the Youngest with RealAge). Online surveys, if answered truthfully, could possibly lead to help people who think they may be depressed. For these people there is no differentiating a good and healthy test or quiz with an online game. These people could be misdiagnosed, or even worse, given a treatment that does not work and is potentially dangerous (Buchanan, 2002; Buchanan, 2003).

This is the basis for which all new clinical studies should be considered. The majority of people in most western civilized countries will take these online tests and take the results as if from a real doctor. It is therefore important to analyze the differences between the games and the real questionnaires. The reliability, validity and statistically analyzed data need to be better understood by both the public and physicians to ensure the person/patient is not receiving incorrect information.

Everyone must be diligent in this area and work harder to standardize the online and clinical questionnaires to build a broader base for data collection. Literature ReviewEven with the internet being fairly new in the last 20 years or so, there are more tests for personality and such on the internet than in most hospitals. Many of these are placed on websites that are not secure, are not authorized by any type of psychologist, psychiatrist or physician (Buchanan, 2002; Buchanan, 2003; Buchanan, Johnson, & Goldberg, 2005).

But before the discussion turns to the website, the tests themselves need to be considered. When conducting any test, it is important to have the foundation of the population that will be tested as well as some basic norms to be used in the evaluation process. From these norms come labels or concepts that are often associated with web-surfers. In a comparative study on the preconceptions of internet based tests (Gosling, Vazire, Srivastrava, & John ,2004). The study listed six ideas, but for the purpose of this study, only a few will be considered.

The first is the idea that the internet will not be as diverse as traditional methods of research. The group stereotyped internet users to be computer techs or loners (Gosling et al, 2004). These stereotypes did not necessarily coincide with previous research on the subject. In fact, the volunteers who take the online test are quite diverse and located around the