Chapter 2: Historical, Cultural, And Legal/Ethical Considerations
A Historical Perspective
• Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century
• The Nineteenth Century
• The Twentieth Century
– The measurement of intelligence
– The measurement of personality
– Measurement in various settings
Legal and Ethical Considerations
• The Concerns of the Public
• The Concerns of the Profession
– Test-user qualifications
– Testing people with disabilities
– Computerized test administration, scoring, and interpretation
Cultural Considerations
• How does culture impinge the results of a psychological test?
• Assessment issues concerning linguistic and cultural differences
Definition of group differences
• Culture
– norms, values, symbols of a group
– Who defines what is dysfunctional?
Race
• Physical characteristics of a group
Ethnicity
• Ancestry, language, religious bonds of a group
Two major approaches to cross-cultural testing
• Etic (Universalist)
• Emic (Contextual)
Etic (Universalist)
• Develop a test within a culture and administer it to persons of different cultures
– tests are not be biased toward a specific experience
– conceptualization of the target behavior/traits is the same for all groups
– behavior/traits are adequately reflected in tests
Emic (Contextual)
• Develop different tests (adaptations) within each culture
• Validate within each culture (local norms)
• Designed to accurately measure target domain
Focus of Hypothesis
• Individual differences (within-group) v. between-group differences
• Heterogeneity of groups
• Is there a gold standard for measuring behavior?
Culture-fair vs. Culture-free Test
• No single test is cultural-free (culture-blind)
• Different cultures may emphasize different
abilities or traits as positive or negative
– Social problem-solving approaches
– Test taking styles
• Goal is to take the best of the etic and emic
approach
– Some traits behaviors may be universal
– Others may be culture-specific
Examples
• Crisco is a:
a) patient medicine b) disinfectant
c) toothpaste d) food product
• Christy Matthewson is famous as a:
a) writer b) artist c) baseball player
d) comedian
Methodological Issues with Linguistic Minorities
• Psychometric equivalence
• Sampling
• Examiner Biases
• Differential Predictive Validity
Levels of Psychometric Equivalence
• Metric
• Conceptual
• Linguistic
Metric
• Is there quantitative equivalence in test measurement across cultures?
• Do all cultures respond similarly to the test format?
• Differences in level of exposure to test format and content
Conceptual
• Are the psychological concepts understood differently across different cultures?
• Is there equivalence in conceptualization of behaviors and constructs?
• Are differences in psychological attributes related to differences in values and experiences.
Linguistic
• Is there equivalence in meaning of psychological concepts?
• Is the language and translation appropriate?
Sampling
• Inappropriate standardization samples
• Under representation in standardization samples
• How do we identify groups?
Examiner Biases
• Appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication
• Rapport vs. intimidation
• Culture-based expectancies
• Stereotyping
Differential Predictive Validity
• Do tests accurately predict the same criterion (outcome) - for culture minorities?
• Does the test measure the same concept?
• Are there test related factors?
• Test bias
Improving Assessment with Linguistic Minorities
• Underlying Assumptions should be explicit
• Research reports methodologically explicit
• Sampling, meta-analysis, effect size, and significance
• Multiple measures, multiple methods
• Use of expert consultants
• Pertinent assessment tools
Test-Taker Rights
• The right of informed consent to testing
• The right to be informed of test findings
• The right not to have privacy invaded
• The right to the least stigmatizing label
• The right to have findings held confidential