Historical, Cultural, and

Legal/Ethical Considerations
Lesson 2
Objective

• Attain a full understanding of the historical,

cultural and legal background of psychological
testing and assessment
Early Antecedents • China
- Test and testing programs first came into China as early as 2200BC
- The purpose is in the means of selecting who, of many applicants would
obtain government jobs

Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E. to 220 C.E.)

❑ Test batteries was quite common
❑ Tests related to such diverse topics as civil law, military affairs,
agriculture, revenue, and geography

Ming Dynasty (1368–1644 C.E.)

❑ A national multistage testing program involved local and regional
testing centers equipped with special testing booths

Song Dynasty
❑ Emphasis was placed on knowledge of classical literature
Early Antecedents

• Ancient Greco-Roman
• Attempts to categorize people’s personality types in
terms of bodily fluid
Charles Darwin and Individual Differences

• Charles Darwin
✓ “Higher forms of life evolved partially because of
differences among individual forms of life within a
species”
✓ “Those with the best or most adaptive
characteristics survive at the expense of those
who are less fit and that the survivors pass their
characteristics on to the next generation”
Charles Darwin and Individual Differences

• Francis Galton
✓Classify people according to their natural
gifts and to ascertain their deviation from an
average
✓Pioneered the use of a statistical concept
central to psychological experimentation and
testing: the coefficient of correlation
Experimental Psychology and
Psychophysical Measurement

•Wilhelm Wundt
-First experimental psychology
laboratory, founded at the University
of Leipzig in Germany
Experimental Psychology and
Psychophysical Measurement

•James Mckeen Cattell

-Coined the term “mental test”
Student of Wundt

• Charles Spearman
✓Originating the concept of test
reliability
✓Building the mathematical
framework for the statistical
technique of FACTOR ANALYSIS
Student of Wundt

•Victor Henri
✓Suggest how mental test could be
used to measure higher mental
process
Student of Wundt

•Emil Kraeplin
✓Word association techniques as a
formal test - Lightner Witmer
The Evolution of Intelligence and
Standardized Achievement Test
The Evolution of Intelligence and Standardized Achievement Test

1895 – Binet and Henri 1905 – BINET AND SIMON

published several articles in
which they argued for the
measurement of abilities
such as memory and social
comprehension
published 30-Item measuring
scale of intelligence designed
to help identify mentally
retarded Paris Schoolchildren
The Evolution of Intelligence and Standardized Achievement Test

1939 – DAVID WECHSLER WW1 – Group Intelligence

introduced a test designed to
measure adult intelligence
(Wechsler-Bellevue
Intelligence Scale (W-B)
tests came into being in
the United States in
response to the Military’s
need
The
Measurement
of Personality
 WW1
✓ Robert Woodworth developed Personal Data
Sheet (measure of adjustment and emotional
stability)
✓ Woodworth Psychoneurotic Inventory - first
widely used self-report test of personality

Projective Test
✓ An individual is assumed to project into some
ambiguous stimulus his or her own unique
needs, fears, hopes, and motivation

Rorschach Inkblots - Best known

The Measurement of
projective test
Personality
Culture and
Assessment

Culture
-The socially transmitted behavior patterns,
beliefs, and products of work of a particular
population, community, or group of people
Culture and Assessment
• Used interpreters in test
administrator, employed a bilingual
psychologist and administered mental
tests to selected immigrants who
appeared mentally-retarded
• Goddard written excessively on the
genetic nature of mental deficiency,
but he did not summarily conclude
that these findings were the result of
hereditary

Henry Goddard
Issues in Testing and
Assessment
 Verbal Communication
✓ The examiner and the examinee
must speak the same language

Non-verbal communication and

behavior
✓ Facial expressions, finger and hand
signs, and shifts in one’s position in
Issues in Testing and
space may all convey messages
Assessment
Standards of
Evaluation
Test User
Qualification

Level A: Tests or aids that can

adequately be administered,
scored, and interpreted with the
aid of the manual and a general
orientation to the kind of
institution or organization in
which one is working (for instance,
achievement or proficiency tests).
Test User
Qualification
Level B: Tests or aids that require some technical
knowledge of test construction and use and of
supporting psychological and educational fields such
as statistics, individual differences, psychology of
adjustment, personnel psychology, and guidance (e.g.,
aptitude tests and adjustment inventories applicable
to normal populations).
Test User
Qualification

Level C: Tests and aids that

require substantial
understanding of testing and
supporting psychological fields
together with supervised
experience in the use of these
devices (for instance, projective
tests, individual mental tests).
Testing People with
Disabilities

1. Transforming the test into a form that can

be taken by test taker
2. Transforming the responses of test taker
so that they are score-able
3. Meaningfully interpreting the test data
Rights of Test Takers

1. The Rights of Informed

Consent
- Testtakers have a right to
know why they are being
evaluated, how the test data
will be used, and what (if any)
information will be released to
whom
Rights of Test
Takers

1. The Rights of Informed Consent

- If a testtaker is incapable of providing an
informed consent to testing, such consent may
be obtained from a parent or a legal
representative
(a) do not use deception unless it is
absolutely necessary
(b) do not use deception at all if it will
cause participants emotional distress
(c) fully debrief participants
Rights of Test
Takers

2. The Rights to be informed of test findings

- Testtakers have a right to be informed, in language

they can understand, of the nature of the findings with
respect to a test they have taken

- They are also entitled to know what recommendations

are being made as a consequence of the test data

- Testtakers have the rights also if the test results are

voided
Rights of Test Takers
3. The Right to Privacy and
Confidentiality
a. Privacy
- freedom of the individual to pick and
choose for himself the time,
circumstances, and particularly the
extent to which he wishes to share or
withhold from others his attitudes,
beliefs, behavior, and opinions
b. Privileged
- it is information that is protected by
law from disclosure in a legal
proceeding
c. Confidentiality
- protects client’s from disclosure
outside the courtroom
Rights of Test
Takers
4. The Right to the least stigmatizing label