This chapter describes a variety of methods and domains related to psychological tests and assessments. This set of concepts is the most conventional in the sense that most presentations of psychological testing focus on types of tests and provide examples of actual tests employed in various domains.  These are the subjects of psychological testing, such as cognitive skills, academic skills, emotions, behaviors, occupations, and so forth.

The terms in this chapter describe major methods for measurement and assessment of educational and psychological constructs related to individuals.  The differences among them are who administers the method (e.g., the participant, administrator, or another person), how the data is produced (e.g., by performing a task, reporting about oneself, or observing another’s behavior), the type of data (e.g., qualitative or quantitative), and the unit of the data (e.g., information about an individual or group).

Recall the concept of method effect from Chapter 1.  That is, scores on a test reflect the method of measurement as well as the construct measured.  It is an interesting (and usually troublesome) fact of educational and psychological testing that the method of measurement can sometimes influence scores as much as the construct being measured. Given this early stage in the history of psychological testing, no consensus has emerged about how to cope with method effects.  One result is that test users and administrators tend to treat all methods equally, without regard for differences of those instruments for detecting effects of interest. In fact, given the low resources typically available for testing in educational and psychological research and practice situations, the choice is often made on the basis of the cheapest, least-time consuming test. For the competent test user, however, the choice of test should depend upon its power to detect constructs of interest.

Finally, here are links to three resources for finding actual psychological tests: APA PsycTests, Tests in Print, and Mental Measurement Yearbooks. Many college and university libraries can provide access to these sites.