Psychometric tests measure psychological abilities and/or characteristics.
- Psychological characteristics - personality
- Psychological abilities- intelligence.
Psychometric tests are used in a variety of settings such as in job interviews.
Psychometric Tests in Psychological Studies
Many psychological studies use psychometric tests. Below are some examples of tests used in well known studies:
Hodges and Tizard (social and family relationships)
- Rutter B Test – This test identifies psychiatric problems such as anxiety, paranoia and depression.
Gould (Review of IQ testing)
- IQ Tests - Gould reviews IQ tests used by Yerkes. IQ tests are used to measure intelligence.
Thigpen and Cleckley (A case of multiple personality)
- IQ Tests – IQ tests showed that Eve White had a higher IQ than Eve Black.
- Memory Tests – Memory tests showed that Eve White had a good memory and Eve Black had a reasonable memory.
- Rorschach Test - This test identified Eve White’s anxiety and obsessive compulsive traits.
- Personality Test– This test highlighted the differences in personality between the alters.
Strengths
- They are fairly easy to administer - They mostly come in a questionnaire format.
- They are cheap to conduct. Once you have purchased the test very little materials/personnel are needed.
- They provide quantitative information about a person's abilities and characteristics allowing comparisons between people to be drawn.
- They can be used in a variety of professional settings.
- They enable people to predict future behaviour/ability. This is particularly useful in a job interview setting.
Weaknesses
Validity Problems
- Problems within the test itself. Sometimes Psychometric tests don't actually measure what they set out to measure.
- Participants do not always give truthful responses. For instance, participants may choose to give socially desirable responses in a personality test.
- People may get better through practice which could mean, for instance, that participants would have an artificially high intelligence test score.
- Some tests are biased towards one group of people. For example, Yerke's IQ tests favoured Native Americans by measuring cultural information rather than IQ.
Reliability Problems
- Mood can affect people’s scores. For example, if somebody was feeling tired they might not try as hard. This coud mean that the test produces different results when used at different times.
