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By Root 920 0

to respond to a person. The test taker needs to view the examiner as trustworthy, competent, and nonjudgmental. The psychologist or other trained professional must use sound professional judgment in eliciting and scoring responses to test items. The differing roles of examiners in individual versus group tests can significantly affect the responses of test takers. Group tests are better standardized and more efficient than individual tests, but individual tests provide more information on test behavior, can be given to test takers who cannot sit for group tests, and can sometimes elicit more creative responses. The most popular individual intelligence test, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III and the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales, exemplify individual exams. Examples of group tests are the widely used Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) employed by the military to screen recruits and assign them to various jobs, training programs, and career paths; and the SAT and ACT (American College Test).

Ethics and Standards in Testing

Because of the potential for abuse, ethical standards guide the development and application of tests. Numerous professional organizations, including the American Psychological Association, have produced documents detailing appropriate technical and professional standards for construction, evaluation, interpretation, and application of psychological tests to promote the welfare and best interests of the client, guard against the misuse of assessment results, respect the client’s right to know the results, and safeguard the dignity of test takers. Psychologists need to obtain informed consent and guarantee confidentiality in personnel testing, for example. Tests should be used for the purpose for which they were designed by professionals trained in their use.

Because some groups (such as African Americans) have tended to score lower on average than other groups (such as European Americans) on intelligence tests and SATs, critics argue that such tests are biased. Since these tests predict school achievement of all races equally well, the major tests are not biased with respect to predictive validity. However, they do seem biased with respect to performance differences resulting from cultural experience. Biologically oriented theorist Arthur Jensen attempted to succeed where Galton failed in developing a culture-free measure of intelligence by measuring reaction time, but his test is inadequate to represent a measure of intelligence. Several attempts at creating culture-reduced tests that measure general intelligence, such as Raven’s Progressive Matrices, have not succeeded in eliminating the difference in mean scores. Culture relevant tests that incorporate skills and knowledge related to the cultural experiences of the test takers may be more successful.

Intelligence and Intelligence Testing

Since intelligence is a construct, it can only be defined by the behaviors that indicate intelligence, such as the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, use information to adapt to the environment, and benefit from training. Because intelligence tests are common and have been used so widely, they have influenced the definition of intelligence; sometimes a score is used to define someone’s intelligence. Intelligence is sometimes reified. Reification occurs when a construct is treated as though it were a concrete, tangible object. Intelligence test developer David Wechsler said, “Intelligence, operationally defined, is the aggregate or global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with his environment.”

Francis Galton’s Measurement of Psychophysical Performance

Modern ability testing originated with Charles Darwin’s cousin, nativist Francis Galton, who measured psychomotor tasks to gauge intelligence, reasoning that people with excellent physical abilities are better adapted for survival, and thus highly intelligent. James McKeen Cattell brought Galton’s studies to the United States, measuring strength, reaction