Establishment of Ethical Guidelines

As psychological tests grew in popularity, the important needs for the ethical use of such measures were recognized early and multiple national and international efforts have been made to address the issue.

The International Test Commission (ITC) was established in 1976 to support the ethical development and use of psychological testing across the world. In the United States, the American Psychological Association (APA) 2010 developed standards of the psychological use of tests and the current APA guidelines under standard of including recent 2010 amendments, address a multitude of issues relevant to the practice of assessment.

Such topics include, the basis and use of assessment, informed consent, release of data, test construction, interpreting of results, qualification and competency of practice as well as test security (APA, 2010). The APA code also includes particular guidelines for clinicians using automated test scoring and interpretation services.

Transition into the computer age

The role of computers has increased significantly in the area of psychological testing and computers have resulted in the more sophisticated and advanced psychometrics techniques that contributed to a radical change in the way testing is done.

Computers are used for administrative tasks, research purposes and for direct clinical applications. Computers have continuously increased the role in clinical assessment, interviews, diagnosis, instruction, treatment, intervention, clinical consultations, and psychiatric interviews.

With these historical roots and with infrastructure provided by the emerging scientific societies, by the second half of the 20th century psychometrics had started out its intellectual turf; psychological setting, educational, psychological measurement, and factor analysis.

Extensions of these three topics, along with numerous contributions to applied statistics motivated by the data collection in empirical psychology, have defined the field through the second half of the last century and into the 21st century. The DSM-iv is the abbreviated term of Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, the fourth edition, published by the American Psychiatric Association Washington D.C 1994, which is the main diagnostic reference of mental health professionals in the U.S

The origins of personality testing date back to the 18th and 19th centuries, when personality was assessed through phrenology, the measurement of the human skull, and physiognomy which assessed personality based on a person’s outer appearance, these pseudoscientific methods were replaced by more modern methods in the 20th century.

Testing for proficiency dates back to 2200BC, when the Chinese emperor used cruelty tests to assess office subordinates. Psychometrics dates to Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911), who was interested in individual differences and their distribution. In 1884-1890, he tested 17,000 individuals on height, weight, size of accessible body parts and behavior, hand strength and visual accity. It demonstrated its objective tests that could provide meaningful scores. In 1890, James Cattell, first used the term ‘mental test’, mostly motor and acuity tests. He also founded psychological review (1897).

Modern intelligence testing began with the work of Alfred Binet, a French psychologist who published the first intelligence test in 1905. Binet’s scale measured a child’s mental age. David Wechsler advised the original Binet scale to produce the standard-Binet scale test in 1916. It introduced the intelligence tests for adults and series of IQ tests. It reduced emphasis on verbal ability, and introduced a new scoring system based on its normal distribution. Today there are many individual and group intelligence tests. An individual IQ test is administered to a single examinee by a psychologist who has special training for its purpose. Group IQ test can be administered to many people simultaneously.

Milestones in Psychometrics

1810: Gall and Spurzheim created phrenology, the science ‘bumps’. They invented decorative charts showing the relationship between bumps on the skull and human personality.

1860s: The Gall and Spurzheim model is discredited, but leaves conventional medicine with a new model that describes mental and emotional abilities.

1865-1879: Victorians from Britain travel the globe to newer places and document that their testing devices show the ‘white sahib’ to be indeed more intelligent that his counterparts in any other region of the world. Francis Galton, one of the fathers of psychometrics, support this contention.

1879: The first ever psychological test in the laboratory is set in Leipzig, Germany by Wilhelm Wundt. His student, James Mckeen Cattell establishes the American Psychological Association.

1896: Cattell publishes his first paper, mental tests and measurement, listing 50 tests. Victor Henri proposes a test for the all-rounder. He suggests the need for the test of memory, imagery, imagination, aesthetic sense, attention, motor skills and strength and will.

1903s: Binet’s book ‘l’etude experimenale de l’intelligence’ lays the groundwork for standardizing intelligence tests.

1905s: Theodore produces the first ever intelligence scale for children.

1917s: intelligence tests are used extensively in the US army to test individuals. Robert uses this analogy of the tests to argue that Jews were so inferior they should be kept out of the country. The standard-Binnet intelligence was introduced.

1927s: Watson declares that all America is psychologically mad. A host of magazines spring up. Consequently claiming to help and test the Americans.

1939-1945: Nazis run tests on Jews showing pictures of naked women and evaluating results based on how their responses and attitudes change.

1960s: A big boom in tests, their number increase in a phenomenal rate.

1971-1977: Over 2000 tests documented which measure things from how clever the person is to team spirit in a basketball team.

1990s: over 8000 instruments in existence with two-three new instruments being added every day to this inventory.