The resources listed below contain information about tests and measures such as reviews, norms, validity and reliability, and other psychometric properties.
Psychological assessments are often reviewed and discussed in professional psychology journals, which can be found in library databases. Journals like the Journal of Personality Assessment, Psychological Assessment, and Assessment are good places to start.
Databases such as the ones listed below often include reviews and discussions about psychological assessments. You can search for the specific assessment you're interested in and look for any related articles or reviews.
Most published or commercially available tests discuss psychometrics within the test manuals. For unpublished tests or assessments, you can search the databases listed above to find information about the psychometric or other properties of tests.
Journals sometimes publish articles that investigate the validity or reliability of a test or measure. In most databases, to find articles discussing the validity or reliability of a measure, type the following into the search:
Line 1: the name of the instrument (place quotation marks around the test title to tell the database to search the words in that exact order)
Line 2: validity OR reliability
The following databases are good places to search for these types of articles:
Essentials of Psychological Assessment Series are accessible and practical guides that give practitioners a framework for clinical assessments. Founded by series editors Alan and Nadeen Kaufman, the books deliver key practical information across a wide range of specialties.
APA Handbook of Testing and Assessment in Psychology
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This three-volume handbook is a comprehensive presentation of the theory and application of tests in psychology and education. It begins with an in-depth portrayal of psychometrics: the quantitative underpinning of testing. It then provides thorough, up-to-date and informative chapters related to five general application areas of testing: industrial/organizational psychology clinical psychology (including health psychology) counseling psychology school psychology educational testing In each of these five areas, this handbook is probably the most comprehensive review of the use of testing and assessment in the subfield.
Encyclopedia of Psychological Assessment
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′once you let a clinical psychologist lay hands on this book, it is quite difficult to get it back again′ - Martin Guha, Librarian, Institute of Psychiatry, London The Encyclopedia of Psychological Assessment is a landmark reference work and constitutes a definitive resource for academics, practitioners and students working in any field of applied psychological science. Psychological assessment is a key component of psychological work. Devices of scientific assessment are necessary for adequate describing, diagnosis, predicting, explaining or changing the behaviour of all subjects under examination. This double-volume collection offers complete coverage to facilitate action in each of these areas and will consequently be invaluable to psychologists in any applied setting. The two volumes of the Encyclopedia of Psychological Assessment contain a series of 235 entries, organized alphabetically, and covering a variety of fields. Each entry includes a general conceptual and methodological overview, a section on relevant assessment devices, followed by links to related concepts in the Encyclopedia and a list of references. The Encyclopedia of Psychological Assessment provides: - A comprehensive network for psychological assessment as a conceptual and methodological discipline, and as a professional activity - An overview of the complexity of assessment, which involves not only testing, but also a process of decision-making for answering relevant questions that arise in the different applied fields - A presentation of relevant issues from basic theory (theoretical perspectives, ethics) and methodology (validity, reliability, item response theory) to technology and modes of assessment (tests, instruments and equipment for measuring behavioral operations) - An attempt to unify this diverse field by offering full coverage of all areas from the most traditional, such as clinical, educational and work and organizational psychology, to the most recent applications linked to health, gerontology, neuropsychology, psychophysiology and environmental assessment. The Encyclopedia of Psychological Assessment offers a truly international perspective, both in terms of the selected authors and chosen entries. It aims to provide an integrated view of assessment, bringing together knowledge dispersed throughout several methodological and applied fields, but united in terms of its relevance for assessment. It is an essential purchase for any library with an existing collection or concern with the field of psychological science in general.
Validity in Educational and Psychological Assessment
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Validity is the hallmark of quality for educational and psychological measurement. But what does quality mean in this context? And to what, exactly, does the concept of validity apply? These apparently innocuous questions parachute the unwary inquirer into a minefield of tricky ideas. This book guides you through this minefield, investigating how the concept of validity has evolved from the nineteenth century to the present day. Communicating complicated concepts straightforwardly, the authors answer questions like: What does ′validity′ mean? What does it mean to ′validate′? How many different kinds of validity are there? When does validation begin and end? Is reliability a part of validity, or distinct from it? This book will be of interest to anyone with a professional or academic interest in evaluating the quality of educational or psychological assessments, measurements and diagnoses.
Scoring psychological tests and measures involves converting raw responses into standardized data that can be meaningfully interpreted. Depending on the type of instrument, this may include summing item scores, calculating subscale totals, or using algorithms to generate composite scores. For norm-referenced tests, results are often compared against established population norms to determine where an individual falls relative to others. Criterion-referenced measures compare performance against a set standard to determine mastery or the presence of specific traits or symptoms.
When exploring test scoring, it is important to understand the difference between scoring and interpretation. While published manuals provide detailed scoring procedures, these are typically restricted to qualified users, such as licensed psychologists, and are not openly available online. Students can still learn about general scoring principals, reliability and validity, and statistical methods by consulting sources such as the Mental Measurements Yearbook with Tests in Print, APA's PsycTests, and test publisher websites.
