Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury

Inventories

Dr. Nidhi Roy Choudhury

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
Jain university
Bangalore

Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury

 Inventory
An inventory is a kind of self-report instrument.

The individual checks responses to certain questions or statements.

Inventories yield scores which are assumed or have been shown to
measure certain tendencies or traits.

Such as Interest inventories attempt to yield a measure of the types of

activities that an individual has a tendency to like and to choose.
In 1907, Hall, a psychologist, standardized Recreational Interest
Inventory and in 1934, Kuder, another psychologist, standardized
Occupational Interest Inventory.

Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury

 Types of Measurement
1. Direct Questioning - It presents questions like - 'Do you like
to play cricket?'
2. Direct Observation - Behavior of the individual is observed
and it is found out in which activities the individual is more
interested.
3. Tested Interest - The individual is exposed to various
experiences related to different types of interests and it is
observed in which area the individual is showing more
interest.

Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury

4. Interest Inventory - This is most preferred way of measuring
interest. It consists of various statements and the individual
is asked to arrange them in order of preference. Mostly interest
inventories are of verbal type.
5. Personality Inventory attempts to measure certain
personality traits such as individual need, adjustment, etc. It
consists of questions of 'Yes /No' type.

Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury

 Advantages
1. Interest inventories are useful in educational and vocational
guidance.
2) They are helpful to the teachers to provide educational
facilities to the students
as per their interests.
3) Individual as well as group administration is possible.
4) Personality inventories have been proved valuable in
diagnosis in clinical situations
for the psychiatrists.
5) An inventory is not very much time-bound.
6) For administering the inventory trained
Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury
person is not required.
 Limitations
1. Because of individuals' inability or unwillingness to
report their own reactions accurately or objectively
these instruments may be of limited value.
2. Part of this limitation may be due to the inadequate
theories of personality upon which some of these
inventories have been based.

Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury

 Big Five Inventory (BFI)
The big five inventory is a 44 item questionnaire.
It that measures an individual on five main areas of personality.
Items are scored on a 1-5 scale.
The scores are calculated as the sum of separate aspects of
personality. e.g. Extraversion
Some items are reversed. For example a score of 1 would then
be a score of 5.

Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury

The Big Five Factors (chart recreated by John &
Srivastava)
Big Five Dimensions Facet (and correlated trait adjective)
Extraversion vs. introversion Gregariousness (sociable)
Assertiveness (forceful)
Activity (energetic)
Excitement-seeking (adventurous)
Positive emotions (enthusiastic)
Warmth (outgoing)
Agreeableness vs. antagonism Trust (forgiving)
Straightforwardness (not demanding)
Altruism (warm)
Compliance (not stubborn)
Modesty (not show-off)
Tender-mindedness (sympathetic)
Conscientiousness vs. lack of direction Competence (efficient)
Order (organized)
Dutifulness (not careless)
Achievement striving (thorough)
Self-discipline (not lazy)
Deliberation (not impulsive)

Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury

The Big Five Factors (chart recreated by John & Srivastava)

Big Five Dimensions Facet (and correlated trait adjective)

Neuroticism vs. emotional stability Anxiety (tense)

Angry hostility (irritable)
Depression (not contented)
Self-consciousness (shy)
Impulsiveness (moody)
Vulnerability (not self-confident)

Openness vs. closedness to experience Ideas (curious)

Fantasy (imaginative)
Aesthetics (artistic)
Actions (wide interests)
Feelings (excitable)
Values (unconventional)

Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury

Lets begin the assessment ….

Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury

 Scoring:

BFI scale scoring (“R” denotes reverse-scored items):

Extraversion: 1, 6R, 11, 16, 21R, 26, 31R, 36

Agreeableness: 2R, 7, 12R, 17, 22, 27R, 32, 37R, 42
Conscientiousness: 3, 8R, 13, 18R, 23R, 28, 33, 38, 43R
Neuroticism: 4, 9R, 14, 19, 24R, 29, 34R, 39
Openness: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35R, 40, 41R, 44

Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury

 Test battery
“A test battery is a group, series, or set of several tests designed to be
administered as a unit in order to obtain a comprehensive assessment
of a particular factor or phenomenon.”
For example, a researcher may administer a battery of
health surveys to a group of individuals diagnosed with a particular
disease to assess multiple facets of the disease. Depending on the
purpose of testing, individual tests may measure the same or different
areas (or both) and may be scored separately or combined into a single
score.
 

Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury

In pre-employment testing, a test battery refers to a set of tests grouped
together and administered to applicants for a particular position. Test
batteries vary from position to position depending on the job’s
requirements and the needs of the employer.
For example, companies hiring maintenance workers may want
to administer a test of mechanical aptitude to assess the applicant’s
ability to work with machinery and tools. They may also want to
administer a basic skills test to measure attention to detail and to see
how trainable the applicant may be.

Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury

Finally, they may want to administer a personality test to
predict how trustworthy, honest, and rule-adherent the
applicant will be.
Combined, these three tests constitute a test battery, and can
be administered to applicants as a sequence. While test
batteries are highly customizable, the sum total of the time
required to take all of the tests within the battery should not be
too long, so as to avoid test fatigue.

Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury

 CHARACTERISTICS
Psychologic tests are rarely given in isolation but as a part of a battery.
This is because any one test cannot sufficiently answer the complex
questions usually asked in the clinical situation.
Most diagnostic questions require the assessment of personality,
intelligence, and perhaps even the presence of organic involvement.
A typical battery of tests includes projective tests to assess
personality such as the Rorschach and the Thematic Apperception Test
(TAT), an objective personality test such as the Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory (MMPI), a semi-structured test like the Rotter
Incomplete Sentence Test, and an intelligence test, usually the Wechsler
Adult Intelligence Scale Revised (WAIS-R).

Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury

 Test Batteries for Specific Populations

Various standard test batteries have been developed

and/or assembled for specific purposes and populations,
and many of these are reviewed in the
excellent neuropsychological test compendiums by Spreen
and Strauss (1998) and Lezak (1995). A few of the more
commonly used batteries include the following:

Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury

1. The consortium to establish a registry for Alzheimer's
disease, a neuropsychological assessment battery (Morris,
Heyman, Mohs, et al., 1989) was developed for use in
patients with known or suspected dementia.
This is a 30—45 minute examination of cognitive
skills that includes measures of orientation, verbal fluency,
naming, verbal learning and memory, and graphomotor
constructional skills. Good reliability and validity have been
demonstrated, and normative data for older adult
populations are available (Welsh et al., 1994).
Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury
2. The NIMH core neuropsychological battery (Butters et al., 1990)
was developed to evaluate cognitive changes associated with HIV
infection.
Both a brief (1–2 hour) and an extended (7–9 hours) battery
comprised of standard clinical neuropsychological tests and
measures used in cognitive psychology were assembled in order to
assess the following cognitive ability areas: premorbid IQ,
attention, speed of information processing, learning and memory,
abstract reasoning, language, visuoperceptual and graphomotor
constructional abilities, and psychomotor skills.
It includes tasks that provide information regarding patterns of
cognitive deficits as commonly seen in degenerative conditions that
affect cortical and particularly subcortical cerebral functions.
Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury
 3. The Pittsburgh Occupational Exposures Test battery (Ryan,
Morrow, Bromet, & Parkinson, 1989) was developed to evaluate
those cognitive functions most commonly affected by exposure
to environmental toxins.
It comprises a series of 15 standard and experimental
neuropsychological measures that assess a variety of abilities in
a reasonably brief amount of time (i.e., approximately 90
minutes).
Factor analysis of the battery revealed the following five
domains: general intelligence, attention, learning and memory,
visuospatial, and psychomotor speed and manual dexterity.
 
Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury
 APPLICATIONS
• The most important consideration for the physician is when to ask for
psychologic assessment. As with medical diagnostic procedures, we
are interested in finding answers to diagnostic questions that cannot be
obtained through direct observation or interview.
• In clinical experience, there are a myriad of circumstances requiring
psychologic consultation either to assist in or rule out medical
intervention.
• Some of the more typical situations include compliance, behavioural
management, affirmation of clinical findings, the use of supportive
drug therapies, and continuity of care issues.

Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury

A Word From Verywell

• Clinical psychology is one of the most popular areas in psychology, but

it's important to evaluate your interests. If you're still unsure whether
you should be a clinical psychologist, counseling psychologist,
rehabilitation counselor, school counselor etc, it is right for you to take
a clinical psychology career test that will help.

• If you enjoy working with people and are able to handle stress and
conflict well, clinical psychology may be an excellent choice.

Dr Nidhi Roy Choudhury