reviews the historical development of psychological testing, together with the implications of psychological testing for multicultural issues in the United States. Among the issues addressed in the review are validity, reliability, and standardization, as these concepts related to psychological testing.
The use of psychological testing is prevalent in a variety of facets of society. Mental health assessments, counseling services, education, criminal justice, and employment are a few of the more prominent areas of society in which the application of psychological testing has a prominent role in the United States (Levin, 1998). Although the specifics of psychological tests tend to be unique to their field of application, the principles underlying psychological testing apply equally to the psychological tests applies in all fields (Graham, 1997). The following discussions of psychological testing, thus, review psychological tests designed for an applied in various fields.
Development of Psychological Testing
Gregory (2000) stated that rudimentary forms of psychological testing develop in China as early as 2200 B.C. At this time, however, the development of the formal discipline of psychology was many centuries in the future. The origins of contemporary psychological testing date to about 1900 (Geisinger, 2000).
As a unique area of scientific inquiry, psychology dates only to the late-nineteenth century. It was in the late-nineteenth century that medical scientists began to gather their data through the observation of people. Before the introduction of this scientific approach, psychology was hardly discernible from philosophy. Through the application of the process of scientific experimentation, psychology became the study of human and animal behavior and mental processes (Landry, 1997).
The application of the scientific method, thus, became indispensable in the conduct of psychological experiments. The scientific ...