Psychometrics is a field of study within psychology concerned with the theory and technique of measurement. Psychometrics generally covers specialized fields within psychology and education devoted to testing, measurement, assessment, and related activities. Psychometrics is concerned with the objective measurement of latent constructs that cannot be directly observed. Examples of latent constructs include intelligence, introversion, mental disorders, and educational achievement. The levels of individuals on nonobservable latent variables are inferred through mathematical modeling based on what is observed from individuals' responses to items on tests and scales.
Psychological testing refers to the administration of psychological tests. Psychological tests are administered or scored by trained evaluators. A person's responses are evaluated according to carefully prescribed guidelines. Scores are thought to reflect individual or group differences in the construct the test purports to measure. The science behind psychological testing is psychometrics.
A standardized test is a test that is administered and scored in a consistent, or "standard", manner. Standardized tests are designed in such a way that the questions and interpretations are consistent and are administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner.
Educational Testing Service (ETS), founded in 1947, is the world's largest private nonprofit educational testing and assessment organization. It is headquartered in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, but has a Princeton address.
Educational assessment or educational evaluation is the systematic process of documenting and using empirical data on the knowledge, skill, attitudes, aptitude and beliefs to refine programs and improve student learning. Assessment data can be obtained from directly examining student work to assess the achievement of learning outcomes or can be based on data from which one can make inferences about learning. Assessment is often used interchangeably with test, but not limited to tests. Assessment can focus on the individual learner, the learning community, a course, an academic program, the institution, or the educational system as a whole. The word 'assessment' came into use in an educational context after the Second World War.
School psychology is a field that applies principles from educational psychology, developmental psychology, clinical psychology, community psychology, and behavior analysis to meet the learning and behavioral health needs of children and adolescents. It is an area of applied psychology practiced by a school psychologist. They often collaborate with educators, families, school leaders, community members, and other professionals to create safe and supportive school environments.
Construct validity concerns how well a set of indicators represent or reflect a concept that is not directly measurable. Construct validation is the accumulation of evidence to support the interpretation of what a measure reflects. Modern validity theory defines construct validity as the overarching concern of validity research, subsuming all other types of validity evidence such as content validity and criterion validity.
Gwyneth M. Boodoo is an American psychologist and expert on educational measurement.
Educational evaluation is the evaluation process of characterizing and appraising some aspect/s of an educational process.
William Burton Michael, a student of J. P. Guilford, earned his Ph.D. in quantitative psychometric methods from the University of Southern California. He started his teaching career at Princeton University, and in 1952 joined the faculty at University of Southern California, where he received a joint appointment as an associate professor in psychology and education and as the director of the USC Testing Bureau. Michael authored over 500 publications on test construction, measurement and evaluation, and personality assessment. He also co-chaired a joint committee of the American Psychological Association (APA), American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) that published Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, which is the national and international standard of professional guidelines for testing and measurement in research and practice. One of his most widely read books is entitled "Handbook in research and evaluation : a collection of principles, methods, and strategies useful in the planning, design, and evaluation of studies in education and the behavioral sciences".
The American Educational Research Association is a professional organization representing education researchers in the United States and around the world. AERA's mission is to advance knowledge about education and promote the use of research in educational practice.
The Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation is an American/Canadian based Standards Developer Organization (SDO). The Joint Committee, created in 1975, represents a coalition of major professional associations formed in 1975 to develop evaluation standards and improve the quality of standardized evaluation. The Committee has thus far published three sets of standards for evaluations. The Personnel Evaluation Standards was published in 1988 and updated in 2008, The Program Evaluation Standards was published in 1994, and The Student Evaluation Standards was published in 2003.
Cecil Randy Reynolds is an American psychology professor best known for his work in psychological testing and assessment.
Psychological evaluation is a method to assess an individual's behavior, personality, cognitive abilities, and several other domains. A common reason for a psychological evaluation is to identify psychological factors that may be inhibiting a person's ability to think, behave, or regulate emotion functionally or constructively. It is the mental equivalent of physical examination. Other psychological evaluations seek to better understand the individual's unique characteristics or personality to predict things like workplace performance or customer relationship management.
In the United States education system, School Psychological Examiners assess the needs of students in schools for special education services or other interventions. The post requires a relevant postgraduate qualification and specialist training. This role is distinct within school psychology from that of the psychiatrist, clinical psychologist and psychometrist.
Anne Anastasi was an American psychologist best known for her pioneering development of psychometrics. Her generative work, Psychological Testing, remains a classic text in which she drew attention to the individual being tested and therefore to the responsibilities of the testers. She called for them to go beyond test scores, to search the assessed individual's history to help them to better understand their own results and themselves.
Lloyd Bond was an American researcher in the field of psychometrics. As of 2009, he was a consulting scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in Stanford, California; he served as a senior scholar at the foundation from 2002 to 2008.
A psychological injury is the psychological or psychiatric consequence of a traumatic event or physical injury. Such an injury might result from events such as abusive behavior, whistleblower retaliation, bullying, kidnapping, rape, motor vehicular collision or other negligent action. It may cause impairments, disorders, and disabilities perhaps as an exacerbation of a pre-existing condition.
The American Psychological Association (APA) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct includes an introduction, preamble, a list of five aspirational principles and a list of ten enforceable standards that psychologists use to guide ethical decisions in practice, research, and education. The principles and standards are written, revised, and enforced by the APA. The code of conduct is applicable to psychologists in a variety of areas across a variety of contexts. In the event of a violation of the code of conduct, the APA may take action ranging from termination of the APA membership to the loss of licensure, depending on the violation. Other professional organizations and licensing boards may adopt and enforce the code.
Randy Elliot Bennett is an American educational researcher who specializes in educational assessment. He is currently the Norman O. Frederiksen Chair in Assessment Innovation at Educational Testing Service in Princeton, NJ. His research and writing focus on bringing together advances in cognitive science, technology, and measurement to improve teaching and learning. He received the ETS Senior Scientist Award in 1996, the ETS Career Achievement Award in 2005, the Teachers College, Columbia University Distinguished Alumni Award in 2016, Fellow status in the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in 2017, the National Council on Measurement in Education's (NCME) Bradley Hanson Award for Contributions to Educational Measurement in 2019, the E. F. Lindquist Award from AERA and ACT in 2020, and elected membership in the National Academy of Education in 2022. Randy Bennett was elected President of both the International Association for Educational Assessment (IAEA), a worldwide organization primarily constituted of governmental and NGO measurement organizations, and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME), whose members are employed in universities, testing organizations, state and federal education departments, and school districts.
