What Is Psychological Testing?

Psychological testing can be defined as it is the purely structured and systematic use of standardized tools, instruments and procedures to measure functions of brain, behaviors, and individual differences. It is technical or scientific process used by psychologists to measure various psychological traits like an intelligence, personality, aptitude, emotional functions of an individual, and cognitive abilities.

Testing plays a vital role to diagnosis of any disease, for better treatment plans, in educational setting, for career counseling, and research purpose as well. It assists us to translate complex human characteristics into quantifiable data that can further guidelines to making decisions and interventions.

Purpose of Psychological Testing

The psychological testing may help us in multiple purposes, for example:

Diagnosis: Tests help us to diagnose psychological disorders such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, ADHD, OCD, learning disabilities, personality disorders or other specified mental health disorders.
For Understanding: To assist individuals understanding their strengths, weaknesses, behavioral patterns and motivations.
Treatment Planning: After the diagnose It help us to inform and tailor therapeutic interventions or counseling strategies.
Selection and Placement: It use in many educational settings like schools, college, military, or organizations to assess aptitude, cognitive ability, or job suitability.
Research: Psychological tests help us to study the human particular behavior, validate theories, and measure outcomes in psychological and educational research.

Characteristics of Psychological Tests

If you are developing a psychological test a good psychological test should be meet these key or essential scientific standards:

Standardization: Standardization is most essential principles in psychological testing. It ensures that every test is administered, scored, and interpreted in a consistent, uniformity and in objective manners.
Reliable: The test should be reliable; test should get consistent results almost every time and over time too.
Validity: In good psychological testing validity is one of the most important qualities of a psychological test. we can say a valid test to those tests, if the test measure what it purports to measure?
Norms: The test scores are compared against a large representative group to give them meaning (e.g., IQ average = 100).
Objectivity: The objectivity is that scoring and interpretation are free from external or examiner bias.

Types of Psychological Tests

These tests can be summarized into many categories these are as ender:

1. Intelligence Tests

There are many tests that measure general intellectual functioning, problem-solving and reasoning and comprehension. Examples of intelligent tests are:

Raven’s Progressive Matrices
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scale

2. Personality Tests

Information regarding emotional traits, interpersonal skills and specific patterns of thinking and how to behaving in particular situation? Particular examples of these tests are as mention:

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-1 & 2)
Rorschach Inkblot Test (projective)
The Big Five Inventory (BFI)

3. Aptitude and Achievement Tests

These tests measure particular abilities or innate knowledge of any individual in a specific area like; academic, technical, or artistic etc. If we see the Examples of these tests are:

Differential Aptitude Tests (DAT)
Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT)

4. Neuropsychological Tests

These tests use to know about the brain functioning and cognitive impairment (e.g., after head injury or neurological illness).
Examples:

Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST)
Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test

5. Attitude and Interest Inventories

The purpose of these tests to know the preferences, personal interests in specific subjects, and values to assist with career guidance. The examples of these type tests are:

Strong Interest Inventory
Vocational Preference Inventory

Ethical Considerations in testing

Ethical considerations are much important in psychological testing that must follow the guidelines that provided by APA or other psychological association for protection and betterment of any individuals’ rights and confidentiality.
Important principles are as mention below:

Informed Consent: first and most important part of any type of test is forming consent; the individual has to right to know about the purpose and use of the tests.
Confidentiality: Test results are private and shared only with consent.
Competence: This is much important that tests should administered by qualified professionals.
Deception: it is more important for any individual privacy and if we need some information hide then after tests examiner should brief about deception.

Applications of Psychological Testing

Psychological testing is using in different settings, like:

Clinical Psychology: It uses for assessment and for diagnosing mental disorders and help for treatment.
Educational Settings: we know about the difficulties of learning and giftedness individuals.
Occupational Settings: Use for recruiting process in offices or institutes, career counseling, and employee assessment.
Forensic Psychology: In legal contexts tests used for evaluation.
Research: Developing theories and testing interventions.

Limitations of Psychological Testing

As other tests have limitation, psychological tests have also some limitations:

Results may be affected by test anxiety, motivation, or cultural bias.
Psychological tests may measure scores at a single point in one time but not permanent traits.
Misinterpretation by unprofessional individuals can lead to misdiagnosis and this is a risk or labelling.

Hence, we have already motioned above that tests must be conducted and interpreted by professional peoples.

Conclusion

Psychological testing is dual art and a science. it changes abstract aspects of any individual’s mind into measurable data. After administered in proper way, it gives us better insights regarding cognition, emotion, and personality.
Tests help to professionals for making informed decisions, empowers personalities to understand yourself in a better way.