We describe a simple classroom activity that demonstrated the process of assessing predictive validity. We assessed changes in student understanding of the process, confidence in psychological testing, and enjoyment in participating in the exercise. Students who completed the activity performed better on a test question about validity and reported…

A new variant of the standard method for estimating the accuracy of educational tests is examined. It is found that the estimates produced by the new method are essentially unbiased and that the typical sizes of the errors of the estimates approach their theoretical lower limit as size increases, though they are still noticably above it for small…

Most methods of personality scale construction have clear statistical disadvantages. A hybrid method (Darlington and Bishop, 1966) was found to increase scale validity more than any other method, with large item pools. A simple modification of the Darlington-Bishop method (algebraically and conceptually similar to ridge regression, but…

Psychological testing has recently fallen into disrepute because psychoanalysts have perpetuated a fraudulent theory of personality and because psychometrists have become overly concerned with psychometric esthetics to the neglect of validity. The theory subscribed to by psychoanalysts holds behavior as relatively independent of the situation the…

The rationale underlying tests of social intelligence and some of the problems inherent in those tests are discussed. To measure social intelligence, paper and pencil tests were developed which were "situation free." These tests employed "stereotypic behavior of individual others." The stimuli used in the behavioral tests were…

This collection of papers, concerned with the nature and theory of intelligence, forms part of a project to integrate test and factor theory with the empirical, functional relationships involving standard intelligence tests. The project will render more objective the use of factor analysis in personnel research. A definition of intelligence…

Mental health clinical services research has emphasized the urgency of developing new psychometric instruments for non-biased psychological assessment of minority and non-minority children of diverse cultural groups in the United States. Background multicultural standardization and validation information is presented for Tell-Me-A-Story (TEMAS)--a…

This book addresses the question of what tests are measures of. Intelligence, achievement, and personality tests not based on empirical investigation have questionable validity. Some researchers now suspect that almost all tests given to students in all subjects, as well as general tests of intelligence and personality, are essentially language…