Aptitude Testing

This research examines the field of educational tests and measurements. Testing and social policy, tests and test interpretation, administering tests, scores and score conversion, test evaluation, tests of ability, personnel selection, interest inventories, personality measurement (and self-reporting), judgment and systematic observations, and inference from performance are addressed.

There is growing concern about the effectiveness of social policy in the United States (Education, 1994, p. 86). Problems in primary and secondary education involving low academic are viewed as being both symptomatic of and important contributors to broader social ills. There are inequities that, over a period of many decades, have been built into the allocation of education resources. These inequities translate into very large performance differentials between different ethnic groups and between students following different educational programs. Widespread education failure contributes to the development of problems which require costly intervention in other policy areas, such as welfare and law enforcement.

The American student population may be one of the most extensively tested in the world (Education, 1994, p. 94). Most educational tests are so-called "standardized tests," usually in multiple-choice format and not closely aligned with any particular curriculum. These educatio

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on tasks (Smith, 1994, p. 13). The basic theory of predictors posits that validity is a function of the domain that is measured and the accuracy with which it is measured (Smith, 1994, p. 20). There are two main aspects governing the accuracy of measures the sampling of the domain and the objectivity of measurement. There are two primary facets to the concept of sampling size and nature. Other factors remaining equal, the larger the sample the more accurate are any indices built on that sample. Therefore, generally predictors which involve a large number of independent data points are preferred over predictors which involve only a few such points. A large biased sample, however, is unlikely to be better than a small representative sample. Thus, a predictor variable "should sample a domain in a way that is unbiased, comprehensive and free from contamination" (Smith, 1994, p. 20). Measurement objectivity implies that the measures in an aptitude test are free of individual judgement. "At one end of the scale are judgments from sources such as traditional interviews by untrained interviewers. In the middle are behaviourally anchored scales used by trained personnel. At the other extreme are responses that are automatically

Category: Psychology - A