Psychological testing

This afternoon I have been reading a book called"Understanding Psychological Testing" by Charles Jackson (1996, Leicester, BPS Books) (WHY didn't I use this format at the beginning of every journal entry based on my reading?)

I wanted to explore a bit more about the validity and methodology of these, especially after my test(wrong it's questionnaire) frenzy last week, and the impressions I was getting. Well good to know the brain is in gear because the gender/ethnocientric/class/bias issues that I raised are all in there - and signposted as areas of concern. My views on validity matched those raised, in fact I think that most of the book was an expansion on what I feel is common sense.

One useful point was the definitions - a psychometric test is one where the higher the score the "better the performance" the kind of thing that I think of when someone says there was a test as part of an interview process. A psychometric questionnaire is the kind of thing I was doing where there is no right/wrong you are exploring your personality. Another was the time scale for validity of use - for adults a test/quest. Done more than a year ago is no longer a fair representation, for children about 6 months. This puts a whole new light on any workplace tests such as the ones we looked at in the class, where the employer categorised a persons training opportunities on the results of a psychological test. A third issue was the one I raised about how do you know a test is rigorously researched - and the fact that it's expensive devising the kind of recruitment tests and training people to facilitate them so tests continue to be used even once their validity is brought into question.

I don't think my views on these have altered - in the main they are very useful for people self testing/starting courses of professional coaching/therapy or similar, but they are personal. For recruitment purposes if you are a large organisation with the financial resources to be sure your have bought and are upgrading the most valid product for your purposes I'm certain they have a place, however the 1 year rule must stand and to refer to an out of date test on someone's file would be as unfair as referring to a spent disciplinary record when looking at staff development/promotion prospects.