COURSE NUMBER: PSY 415

COURSE NAME: Psychological Assessment

TERM: Spring I 2008

INSTRUCTOR:

Kimberly Swiss

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EMAIL:


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REQUIRED TEXTS:

Title / Psychological Testing:Principles, Applications, and Issues
Author(s) / Kaplan, R. M., & Saccuzzoo, D. P.
Copyright / (2005).
Publisher / Thomson/Wadsworth
ISBN / 0534633064
Edition / 6th

This Course Requires the Purchase of a Course Packet: YES NO

ArgosyUniversity

COURSE SYLLABUS

PSY415

Psychological Assessment

Faculty Information

Faculty Name: Kimberly Swiss

Campus:

Contact Information:

Office Hours:

Short Faculty Bio:

Course description: In-depth examination of assessment processes and measurement strategies for aptitudes, intelligence, interests, performance, and personality of diverse population. Ethical, legal, and social issues in test theory, construction, and evaluation. Emphasis on psychometric properties.

Course Pre-requisites: PSY210

Required Textbook:

Kaplan, R. M., & Saccuzzoo, D. P. (2005). Psychological Testing:Principles, Applications, and Issues. 6th Edition. Thomson/Wadsworth. ISBN:0534633064

Course length: 7.5 Weeks

Contact Hours: 45 Hours

Credit Value: 3.0

Program Outcomes:

  1. Cognitive Abilities
  2. Critical Thinking - Given a psychological issue, employ skeptical inquiry and a scientific approach to respond to the issue.
  3. Information Literacy - Given a research question related to psychology, access information from a variety of sources and select appropriate sources to respond to the question.
  4. Research
  5. Understanding Research Methods – Given an article about research findings in the field of psychology from a scholarly journal, identify the research methods used and the findings of the article.
  6. Identifying Research Methods – Identify the appropriate statistical tools and basic research methods in psychology, including research design, data analysis, and interpretation.
  7. Communication Skills
  8. Oral - Effectively present psychological concepts orally as appropriate to the audience.
  9. Written - Effectively present psychological information, in writing, using software and style appropriate to the audience.
  10. Ethics/Diversity
  11. Ethics - Identify the issues and challenges related to ethics in the field of psychology.
  12. Diversity - Identify the issues and challenges related to diversity in the field of psychology.
  13. Knowledge of the Field
  14. Foundations – Recognize the major concepts, theoretical perspectives, empirical findings, applications, and historical trends in psychology.
  15. Knowledge of Applied Psychology
  16. Apply psychological principles to personal, social, and/or organizational issues.

7. Interpersonal Effectiveness

Students will develop and improve positive relationship skills via effective communication, respect for others, appreciation of diversity and cultural sensitivity, and awareness of their impact on others.

7.1 Apply active listening communication skills in interpersonal and organizational scenarios to establish empathetic, collegial relationships that facilitate

consensus building in working toward common goals and are appreciative of diversity and culture.

7.2 Analyze the importance of effective nonverbal communication skills in developing strong interpersonal and organizational relationships that are culturally sensitive and respectful of diversity.

7. 3 Solicit and utilize feedback to develop adaptable strategies of facilitating dynamic interpersonal and organizational relationships.

7. 4 Analyze the impact of technological advances on communication within interpersonal and organizational relationships.

7. 5 Utilize effective communication and relationship skills in order to promote the growth of others and effect change.

Course Objectives:

  1. Demonstrate an understanding of the nature and use of psychological tests and the historical antecedents of modern testing practices. (Program Outcome(s): 5)
  2. Define the basic concepts and nature of psychological and educational tests.
  3. Distinguish between structured personality tests and projective personality tests.
  4. Define the terms achievement, aptitude, and intelligence, and identify a concept that can encompass all these terms.
  5. Distinguish between ability tests and personality tests.
  6. Explain what a normative or standardization sample is and why such a sample is important.
  7. Identify the major developments in the history of psychological testing.
  8. Explain the relevance of psychological tests in contemporary society.
  9. Identify and explain the methodological and psychometric principles of psychological assessment instruments including test theory, test construction, validity, and reliability. (Program Outcome(s): 3.1, & 5)
  10. Discuss the properties of scales of measurement, descriptive statistics, and correlation.
  11. Express the extent to which two measures are associated and the nature of the relationship by using visual graphs.
  12. Describe how a regression line describes the relationship between two variables.
  13. Identify how norms are created and how they are used to examine reliability and validity.
  14. Explain what measurement error is and how it interferes with scientific studies in psychology.
  15. Explain how reliability affects psychological testing.
  16. Discuss different types of validity.
  17. Articulate major theoretical, social/cultural, and ethical/legal issues in ability testing; personality testing; and assessment of interests, styles, and types. (Program Outcome(s): 3.1, & 5)
  18. Discuss the Stanford Binet Intelligence test and Wechsler tests, and differentiate between them and other tests of ability.
  19. Describe at least one personality test and one interest inventory.
  20. Describe intelligence and intelligence quotient.
  21. Discuss social/cultural and ethical/legal issues in ability testing, personality testing, and assessment of interests, styles, and types.
  22. Review and analyze differences among procedures and considerations for testing individuals and groups; individuals with special needs; and persons at various developmental stages.(Program Outcome(s): 3.1, 4.2, & 5)
  23. Explain how a researcher might identify biased results based on the notion of adverse impact.
  24. Discuss different types of interviews and the impact an interviewer has on the assessment process.
  25. Identify some of the characteristics of effective interviewing.
  26. Appreciate the role of cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic factors in the interview process.
  27. Compare and contrast individual and group tests.
  28. Describe group tests used for students in kindergarten through the twelfth grade.
  29. Discuss group tests for college entrance and graduate school entrance.
  30. Discuss modifications of administration based on an individual’s development level or special needs, such as sight and hearing impairments.
  31. Examine and articulate differences in response-types of instruments including self-report interviews or paper/pencil tests; projective tests; and observational assessments. (Program Outcome(s): 3.1, & 5)
  32. Describe types of item formats commonly used in objective classroom examinations.
  33. Evaluate the strategy used in the construction of MMPI/MMPI 2 and MMPI-A, its strengths and weaknesses, and when it is used.
  34. Describe the projective hypothesis.
  35. Analyze the Rorschach test, principles of its administration and scoring, and its pros and cons and appropriate usage.
  36. Analyze the TAT stimuli, administration procedures, the factors that should be considered in its interpretation, and when it is used.
  37. Recognize the issues surrounding observational assessment techniques.

Assignment Table

Topics / Readings / Assignments
1 /
  • Definition of Psychological Testing
  • History of Psychological Testing
  • Aptitude, Achievement, and Intelligence
  • Ability and Personality Tests
  • Cultural, Legal, or Ethical Issues
/ Kaplan & Saccuzzo
Chapter 1 / Discussion Questions:
  1. Shelley is in college studying for a degree in psychology. As part of an assignment, she is required to create a technique that measures the personality of others. Shelly develops a list of questions pertaining to individual choices and attitudes. Her rationale is that by asking a person such questions, she can gain an insight into the person’s personality.
  2. Do you think that the list of questions that Shelley has come up with constitutes a psychological test? Provide reasons for your answer.
  3. Discuss the kind of test questions you would create in response to the same assignment.
  1. Most colleges and universities have a committee dedicated to approving human participant research. In the past, certain types of research undertaken using human participants have been considered unethical. You may refer to the Stanford Prison study at the following Web site:
Based on the findings of this study and others, discuss what you consider as important prerequisites for conducting research on human behavior by using human participants.
  1. Gemma is an Asian-American woman studying psychology at a graduate school in New York. She has been in the United States for only a year. As part of her testing class, she has to develop an assessment technique — by using a structured or unstructured format — to measure aggression in individuals. The test must contain questions that are accurate enough to assess different levels of aggression.
  2. Based on your understanding of cultural issues in psychological testing, answer the following questions:
  3. How might Gemma’s assessment differ if she were going to measure individuals of different cultural backgrounds, such as Asian, Latin Americans, and Native Americans?
  4. Will Gemma’s presentation of test content be different in comparison to other students’, who is born and raised in the United States? Provide reasons for your answer.
Assignments:
  1. Aptitude and Achievement
Sam has two important tests on one day. One is the end-of-the-year test, which will decide whether he passes or fails the class. The other is a test of music, based on which the music teacher will decide whether or not Sam has musical ability.
  1. Which of Sam’s two tests is an aptitude test, and which is an achievement test?
  2. Differentiate between aptitude and achievement.
  3. Identify the potential problems in using these tests in Sam’s case.
  4. What would be the right kind of questions to be included in a test assessing musical ability?
  5. What would be the right kind of questions to be included in a test assessing mathematical ability?
  1. Final Project
The test is for measuring intelligence. Refer to the information provided about the test, and perform the following tasks:
  1. Provide a fictitious name to the test that best describes the nature of the test.
  2. Discuss what intelligence means to you.
  3. Differentiate between intelligence and personality.
  4. Differentiate clearly between ability tests and personality tests by providing a few examples of each.
  5. Compare personality, intelligence, and aptitude.
  6. Differentiate between this test and educational tests. Provide reasons for your answer.

2 /
  • Need for Statistics
  • Scales of Measurement
  • Techniques of Representing Data
/ Kaplan & Saccuzzo
Chapter 2 / Discussion Questions:
  1. A high school teacher wishes to tabulate and create a graph of the results of a final exam for the 15 students in her class so that she can show the principal their performance visually.
  2. Identify the best technique to represent this data. Provide reasons for your answer.
  3. If she wanted to showcase to the principal that the performance of her class has improved, which measure of central tendency would be the most effective?
  4. What factors are important in deciding the most appropriate measure of central tendency?
  1. A high school teacher assesses the performance of her class by using mode as the measure of central tendency. In other words, she decides that because 10 out of 35 students in her class have scored 80%, her class on the whole has done well.
  2. How can the high school teacher better evaluate whether the class is doing better or worse? Provide reasons for your answer.
  3. Identify the measure that the teacher should use. Provide reasons for your viewpoint.
  4. Provide examples of how the mean, median, and mode might be misused when trying to solve real-life problems.
  1. Mark Twain is credited with saying, “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.” What was he referring to?
  2. If statistics are sometimes used to confuse or manipulate others, why should we study them at all? Provide logical reasons to support your views.
Assignments:
  1. Norms
Standard scores, which are the format of the results in psychological assessment, are simply “the degree to which the observed score matches the norming sample.” For example, a standard score of 10 when the mean is 10 indicates that the observed score matches exactly at the 50%ile of the norming sample.
This means that the norming sample is our ruler against which other scores are measured.
  1. Discuss the way norms are developed.
  2. Analyze the mechanisms in place to ensure that the norms selected are accurate for the test in question.
  3. Address random sampling, random assignment to groups, and matching in your answers. Explain why these concepts are so essential.
  4. Explain the problem of using the wrong scale for certain calculations.
  5. Analyze how misinterpreting the wrong scale can result in incorrect interpretations.
  1. Final Project
The test you have named is based on the ordinal scale of measurement. The ordinal scale allows you to rank individuals or objects without attaching any meaning to the differences between ranks.
  1. Compare the ordinal scale of measurement with other scales of measurement, providing examples of each.
  2. Give reasons an intelligence test could be based on any of the other scales of measurement.
  3. Examine how scales of measurement should differ between ability tests and personality tests.

3 /
  • Correlation and Regression
  • Theory and Types of Reliability
  • Sources and Measures of Error
/ Kaplan & Saccuzzo
Chapter 3
Chapter 4 / Discussion Questions:
  1. Assume that there is a correlation of 0.80 between family discord and obesity in adolescent girls. How would you interpret this?
  2. What are some possible reasons for this correlation to exist?
  3. Provide relevant examples of positive and negative correlation. Analyze how the examples might be represented on a regression line.
  1. A research study examined the feeling of happiness two groups of students had toward their instructor in one of two teaching formats ― online and on-ground.
Classical Test theory tells us that “X,” the observed score, is the true (T) score plus error (E) — X = T + E.
Explain the concepts of X, T, and E by using the aforementioned fictional study, three sources of error, and one measure that we use statistically to “control” for error.
  1. Often, correlation is mistaken for causation. For example, childhood sexual abuse and dissociative personality disorder have a strong correlation as do family dysfunction during childhood and emotional issues in adulthood.
  2. Provide reasons why you might view these as correlation not causation.
  3. Theoretically, how should you evaluate whether or not a causal factor truly exists?
Assignments:
  1. Reliability
Reliability is one of the essential requirements of a psychometrically sound test. Discuss why this is so.
  1. What would it mean if a test were unreliable?
  2. Identify some methods used to measure the reliability of a psychological test.
  3. Analyze how you would go about increasing the reliability of the test.
  1. Final Project
To gauge the level of the test-retest reliability of the test, suppose you administer it to a group of 10–15 year olds twice over a period of two weeks. While administering the test, you’ll observe that the test is low on reliability because it yields different results when you administer it at different times to the same subjects.
  1. What factors you think are responsible for low test-retest reliability?
  2. Do you think the test reliability was affected by the items within the test or other more extraneous factors?
  3. What is the best way to assess the test-retest reliability of a test?
  4. What do you think are the sources of error for this type of reliability? Describe ways in which you would mold the test to make it higher on reliability.
  5. How do you think reliability affects psychological testing?
  6. How do you think administering the test to a group that it was not intended for affects the results?

4 /
  • Definitions and Types of Validity
  • Validity Coefficients
  • Reliability vs. Validity
/ Kaplan & Saccuzzo
Chapter 5 / Discussion Questions:
  1. The Good Guys, an electronics store, has the slogan, “The Good Guys: We’ve Got to be Good.”
The implication might be that “They’ve Got to be Good” because they are named “The Good Guys.”
  1. Is it necessarily true that if named “Good,” they must be “good”?
  2. What is the primary issue with this slogan? Explain where the store’s argument loses validity.
  3. In addition, provide a slogan of your own for another product that would have a high level of validity.
  1. Assume you are planning to apply to graduate school. The admissions committee would use many selection criteria to either accept or deny you admission.
  2. What measure do you feel would be the most and which the least valid for basing an admissions decision? Explain your choice.
  1. An eighth-grade history test is administered to sixth-grade history students. The questions are all history-related. The students, however, soon realize that the items on the test are not relevant to the course covered by them that year.
A spelling test consists of 100 items. The students are required to correct the spellings of all the 100 words. The test does not have a time limit.
A test measuring interest in art guarantees that people who score high always end up doing exceedingly well in art competitions.
  1. Describe the type of validity indicated in each example.
  2. Discuss why you think the three examples indicate the three specific types of validity?
  3. Analyze any two types of validity by providing your own examples.
Assignments:
  1. Understanding Validity
Everyday, we are assaulted with truths — people trying to convince us to do things, such as spend money or time or vote, based on their arguments that they claim are valid.
  1. Choose one of these arguments from your life, and evaluate its validity.
  2. Address the different types of validity, and discuss the skills needed to defend against invalid arguments.
  3. Address the topics from Weeks 1–3, including psychological testing, statistics, and reliability, and analyze how they relate to the evaluation of validity.
  4. Explain how reliability is connected to validity in this situation.
  1. Final Project
The test is low on content validity, but extremely high on face validity. Identify the issues in the test that contribute to its being low on content validity.
  1. List the advantages and disadvantages of having a test with high face validity.
  2. Create three test questions that might have both high content and face validity for this test.
  3. Discuss how norms help assess reliability and validity.
  4. Suggest ways in which you would define norms for a test of intelligence.