Psychology 531: Psychological Tests and Measurement

Topics

• The history of psychological testing
• Uses of test results
• Ethical issues in testing
• Norms, and the reliability and validity of tests
• Item analysis, test bias, item response theory, and test construction
• Individual and group tests of intellectual functioning
• Personality measurement
• Testing in educational, occupational, and clinical settings

This course is appropriate for juniors, seniors, and graduate students in psychology, industrial relations, or education. Students must have completed Psych 30 or its equivalent. Quizes and a final examination will be administered; there is also a test-construction project.

Some pages for the Fall, 2007 realization of the course:

• The Fall, 2007 Schedule
• Some of the Illustrations Used in Class
• The Grading System
• The Test Construction Project

Additional readings of interest for specific classes (may) appear in the following (possibly growing) list. Note: These are Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) files that are large, 1-3MB, and should only be downloaded on a relatively fast connection to the internet.

• To augment the PBS video for class, August 23:
  • Time magazine's cover story of Oct. 27, 2003 on the new SAT
  • Newsweek magazine's cover story of Sept. 6, 1999 on the SAT
  • Newsweek magazine's Sept. 6, 1999 excerpt from Nicholas Lemann's The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy
• On federal requirements for state achievement testing:
  • The New Yorker magazine's Talk of the Town essay of Sept. 15, 2003