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Psychological Testing and Assessment: An Introduction to Tests and Measurement 7th Edition Cohen−Swerdlik
Psychological Testing and Assessment: An Introduction to Tests and Measurement 7th Edition Cohen−Swerdlik
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PsychologyPsychological Testing and Assessment:
An Introduction to Tests and Measurement
7th Edition
Cohen−Swerdlik
McGraw-Hill
=>?
McGraw−Hill Primis
ISBN−10: 0−39−011360−3
ISBN−13: 978−0−39−011360−3
Text:
Psychological Testing and Assessment: An
Introduction to Tests and Measurement,
Seventh Edition
Cohen−Swerdlik
, This book was printed on recycled paper.
Psychology
http://www.primisonline.com
Copyright ©2009 by The McGraw−Hill Companies, Inc. All rights
reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Except as
permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part
of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form
or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system,
without prior written permission of the publisher.
This McGraw−Hill Primis text may include materials submitted to
McGraw−Hill for publication by the instructor of this course. The
instructor is solely responsible for the editorial content of such
materials.
111 PSYCGEN ISBN−10: 0−39−011360−3 ISBN−13: 978−0−39−011360−3
, Psychology
Contents
Cohen−Swerdlik • Psychological Testing and Assessment: An Introduction to Tests and
Measurement, Seventh Edition
Front Matter 1
Preface 1
I. An Overview 13
1. Psychological Testing and Assessment 13
2. Historical, Cultural, and Legal/Ethical Considerations 47
II. The Science of Psychological Measurement 83
3. A Statistics Refresher 83
4. Of Tests and Testing 113
5. Reliability 151
6. Validity 184
7. Utility 220
8. Test Development 245
III. The Assessment of Intelligence 289
9. Intelligence and Its Measurement 289
10. Tests of Intelligence 322
11. Preschool and Educational Assessment 357
IV. The Assessment of Personality 390
12. Personality Assessment: An Overview 390
13. Personality Assessment Methods 436
V. Testing and Assessment in Action 481
14. Clinical and Counseling Assessment 481
15. Neuropsychological Assessment 524
16. Assessment, Careers, and Business 557
Back Matter 605
References 605
Credits 653
Name Index 655
Glossary/Index 663
iii
,
,Cohen−Swerdlik: Front Matter Preface © The McGraw−Hill 1
Psychological Testing and Companies, 2010
Assessment: An
Introduction to Tests and
Measurement, Seventh
Edition
Preface
I n the late 1970s, when work first began on our introductory measurement text, there
were a few existing textbooks on measurement in psychology. All of them were up to
the task of providing students with a basic grounding in psychometrics. However, hav-
ing used some of these texts as students ourselves, we were also aware of some very real
problems that they shared. From our perspective, the problems with the existing texts
were as follows:
■ Reading them was a challenge; they seemed to be written more for instructors to
teach from than for students to learn from.
■ The writing was rigidly academic, lacking any hint of a “hands-on,” working
knowledge of what was being written about. One might read the entire text, cover-
to-cover, and find no evidence that the writer ever really administered or was
called upon to interpret test findings, let alone take action on them.
■ Coverage of certain subjects—legal/ethical issues in assessment, cultural issues in
assessment, forensic assessment, neuropsychological assessment, psychological
assessment in business—was all but nonexistent.
■ Portions of many of the chapters were quite heavy with descriptions of tests,
giving these portions of the text a distinct, Tests in Print–type “feel.”
■ The art program consisted mostly of number-intensive graphs and tables, as well
as some photos of test materials. Many of these illustrations (particularly of the
latter variety) seemed to be inserted more to break up text than to stimulate the
reader’s imagination or to solidify associations with whatever was being written
about.
■ Coverage of the heritage and history of the enterprise was scant. Little or no effort
was made to convey a sense of where all of the facts and formulas being presented
fit within the grand scheme or context of the subject matter.
■ An assumption inherent in the writing seemed to be that every student taking the
course was up-to-speed on all of the statistical concepts that would be necessary to
learn about psychometric concepts such as reliability and validity.
■ A similar assumption was seemingly inherent in chapters having to do with the
assessment of abilities and personality. Authors assumed that all students were
uniformly familiar with the definitional issues and controversies surrounding
terms such as intelligence and personality.
We wanted something better for a new generation of students. First and foremost,
the book we envisioned would have to contain all of the material necessary to provide
students with a sound grounding in basic psychometrics. But beyond presenting all that
was necessary for students to achieve a clear conceptual understanding of the assess-
ment enterprise, we would strive to present the material in a meaningful context. This
meant that an unprecedented effort would be made to “breathe life” into all of the num-
bers, equations, models, and other statistics-related material—material that seemed to
put off so many students going into the course.
xiii
,2 Cohen−Swerdlik: Front Matter Preface © The McGraw−Hill
Psychological Testing and Companies, 2010
Assessment: An
Introduction to Tests and
Measurement, Seventh
Edition
First and foremost, our objective was to create a measurement textbook that
provided a basic grounding in psychometrics and effectively overviewed the enterprise.
However, our book would part company with existing textbooks in several ways:
■ Our book would be one that would not only be easy for instructors to teach from,
but one that students could painlessly learn from (by virtue of its engaging content
and appropriate level of writing).
■ Our book, while scholarly and well referenced with authoritative sources, would
still convey the “hands-on” feel that the authors had with tests. Unlike many
of the people writing about testing and assessment then (as well as today), we
actually had a great deal of experience administering, scoring, and interpreting
tests in clinical, counseling, school, and business-related contexts. We felt that
students could profit from our sharing of this experience.
■ It was our view that students taking an overview course in measurement
should have a solid grounding in legal/ethical issues, as well as psychometrics.
Accordingly, discussion of legal/ethical issues, which sets a context for all that
follows, was placed early on in the book (Chapter 2). A clear need also existed
for coverage of other areas of test use (such as neuropsychological and forensic
applications), and this material was presented in a later section we called “Testing
and Assessment in Action.”
■ We would provide descriptions of some illustrative tests where appropriate.
However, we would direct students to reference sources for more extensive
descriptions of various tools of assessment.
■ The art program for the text that we envisioned would complement the writing
in terms of humanizing the material and making the material timely and relevant.
Photos would be used not only to give students a better sense of the historical
personages we mentioned, but to, more generally, solidify associations with the
concepts presented.
■ In our experience, many students taking an introductory course in measurement
had never taken a course in history and systems. This fact, combined with the
fact that we viewed a knowledge of historical events to be desirable—and had
personally found learning about such events to be fascinating—prompted the
inclusion of intriguing historical material in Chapter 2, as well as elsewhere
throughout the book. By the way, beginning with the sixth edition, we created
a Timeline for placement in the inside covers of the text to further pique student
interest in the heritage of the enterprise.
■ Despite the fact that a course in statistics was typically a prerequisite for taking a
measurement course, we thought it unrealistic to expect that all students would
be uniformly up-to-speed with regard to the knowledge of statistics needed to
succeed. For this reason, a “statistics refresher,” would be the first chapter in the
section that dealt with statistics-related material. The “refresher” could, of course,
be assigned or not at the discretion of the instructor.
■ Logic dictated to us that preliminary discussion of the subjects of intelligence and
personality was necessary to help lay a necessary foundation for more detailed
treatment of these constructs in an assessment-related context.
This book was originally published by a small, independent publisher. To give the
reader an idea of how small that publisher was, it had a sales force of about five people
(which included both the president of the company as well as the editor). By compari-
son, the existing books were published by publishers with dedicated sales forces of over
xiv Preface
,Cohen−Swerdlik: Front Matter Preface © The McGraw−Hill 3
Psychological Testing and Companies, 2010
Assessment: An
Introduction to Tests and
Measurement, Seventh
Edition
100 people. The “marketing” of the first edition of our book consisted of our publisher
buying a list of instructors who taught a measurement course and then sending out a
sample copy of the book to everyone on that list. But apparently, it did not take much
more than that for us to win over instructors and students. One after another, instruc-
tors voiced appreciation for our perspective on the discipline, our selection of topics to
be covered, and our lucid presentation of the material. By the time we began work on
the second edition, our textbook was the one that was being emulated by all of the oth-
ers. It still is. Today, coverage of many of the topics we first deemed to be essential in
a measurement text is now “standard” among measurement textbooks. We assure you
that such material—a statistics refresher, coverage of behavioral assessment, coverage
of legal and ethical issues, and so on—were by no means standard when the first edi-
tion of our book was published.
The fact is that authors of textbooks then, much like authors today, are confronted
with many choices. Some of these choices have to do with variables such as organi-
zation of the material to be presented, content selected for presentation, art to supple-
ment the text, pedagogical tools to reinforce learning, and the writing style or voice used to
“speak to” readers. We believe these variables are all critically important vis-à-vis how
much students ultimately take away from the textbook they are assigned. So, the critical
question arises: How well does our measurement textbook “measure up” to others that
are available with regard to each of these important criteria? Rather than sharing our
own responses to that critical question, we ask that instructors, after a careful review of
the available alternatives, draw their own opinion. Here, for our part, we hope only to
impart a sense of the logic we have applied in organizing and presenting material for
this seventh edition, and what we have tried to accomplish.
Let’s begin with the matter of organization. From the first edition of our book for-
ward, we have organized the information to be presented into five major sections. While
we have no illusions about this organization reaching the iconic status of another “big
five,”1 this organization has been proven to work well for both students and instructors
alike. Part I, An Overview, contains two chapters that do just that. Chapter 1 provides a
comprehensive overview of the field, including some important definitional issues, a
general description of tools of assessment, and related important information couched
as answers to questions regarding the who, what, why, how, and where of the enterprise.
The foundation for the material to come continues to be laid in the second chapter
of the overview, which deals with historical, cultural, and legal/ethical issues. The
material presented in Chapter 2 clearly sets a context for everything that will follow.
To relegate such material to the back of the book (as a kind of elective topic, much like
the way that legal/ethical issues are treated in some books), or to ignore presentation of
such material altogether (as most other books have done with regard to cultural issues
in assessment), is, in our estimation, a grave error. “Back page infrequency” (to bor-
row an MMPI-2 term) is too often the norm, and relegation of this critically important
information to the back of the book inevitably means that too many students will be
shortchanged—if not totally deprived— of key cultural, historical, legal, and ethical
information.
The second part of the book, The Science of Psychological Measurement, contains
Chapters 3 through 8, six chapters designed to build, logically and sequentially,
the student’s knowledge of psychometric principles. The part begins with a chapter
reviewing basic statistical principles and ends with a chapter on test construction. In
between, there is extensive discussion of assumptions inherent in the enterprise, the
elements of good test construction, and the concepts of norms, correlation, inference,
1. A not-so-subtle homage here to Paul T. Costa Jr. and Robert R. McCrae.
Preface xv
,4 Cohen−Swerdlik: Front Matter Preface © The McGraw−Hill
Psychological Testing and Companies, 2010
Assessment: An
Introduction to Tests and
Measurement, Seventh
Edition
reliability, and validity. In a new chapter (Chapter 7) titled “Utility,” readers will find
definitions of utility and related terminology, a discussion of the many factors that can
affect a test’s utility, and a discussion of the process of conducting a utility analysis.
The Close-up in this new chapter provides a step-by-step, informative illustration of a
hypothetical utility analysis. Students will come away from this chapter not only with
a working knowledge of what utility is, but how an index of utility is derived, and the
various ways that cut scores can be set.
Let’s note here that topics such as utility and utility analysis can get extremely
complicated. However, we have never shied away from the presentation of so-called dif-
ficult material. For example, we were the first introductory textbook to present detailed
information on conducting a factor analysis. As more commercial publishers and other
test users have adopted the use of item response theory (IRT) in test construction, so
our coverage of IRT has kept pace. In fact, in this edition, we have more coverage of
IRT than in any previous edition. As more test reviews have begun to evaluate tests not
only in terms of variables such as reliability and validity but in terms of utility, we saw
a need for the inclusion of a new chapter on that topic. By the way, we could not find
comparable coverage of the important concept of test utility in any current competing
textbook.2
Of course, no matter how “difficult” the concepts we present are, we never for a
moment lose sight of the appropriate level of presentation or who the students are who
have been assigned our text. This book is designed for students taking a first course in
psychological testing and assessment. Our objective in presenting material on methods
such as IRT and utility analysis is simply to acquaint the introductory student with
these techniques. The depth of the presentation in these and other areas has always been
guided and informed by extensive reviews from a geographically diverse sampling of
instructors who teach the introductory measurement course. For users of this textbook,
what currently tends to be required is a conceptual understanding of commonly used
IRT methods. We believe our presentation of this material effectively conveys such an
understanding. Moreover, it does so without unnecessarily burdening students with
level-inappropriate formulas and calculations.
Part III of this book, The Assessment of Intelligence, contains three chapters, including
one that deals more generally with ability assessment in the schools. Part IV, The Assess-
ment of Personality, contains two chapters that respectively overview how personality
assessments are conducted and the various methods used. Part V, Testing and Assessment
in Action, is designed to convey to students a sense of how tests and other tools of assess-
ment are actually used in clinical, counseling, business, and other settings.
In addition to a logical organization that sequentially builds on student learn-
ing, we view content selection as another key element of our appeal. The multifac-
eted nature and complexity of the discipline affords textbook authors wide latitude
in terms of what material to elaborate on, what material to ignore, and what material
to highlight, exemplify, or illustrate. We welcome this latitude and take advantage of
it by peppering the text with sometimes unexpected, hopefully intriguing, facts and
perspectives. In fact, as the many instructors who have used this book from the first
edition forward well know, each edition of the book has provided novel, sometimes
surprising, but always thought-provoking information that goes beyond the basic,
2. The terms utility or test utility do not appear in the index of any of the competing textbooks we looked
at (let alone the glossary or anywhere else). We make this observation to put on notice any skeptics of our
contention that we have led the way in terms of the content of introductory measurement textbooks since
our first edition. We fully expect all of the competing textbooks to follow us (as they always have in terms
of content selection) in subsequent editions.
xvi Preface
,Cohen−Swerdlik: Front Matter Preface © The McGraw−Hill 5
Psychological Testing and Companies, 2010
Assessment: An
Introduction to Tests and
Measurement, Seventh
Edition
need-to-know information about various topic areas. Our objective here has always
been to enhance the memorability of the material, while enriching students’ apprecia-
tion for it.
So, for example, in the context of discussing projective techniques in the previ-
ous edition of this book, we first introduced B. F. Skinner as a pioneer in projective
assessment (yes, that B. F. Skinner). This presentation was very well received as it
informed, surprised, and intrigued many a reader. In this edition, we anticipate that
Dr. Eric Zillmer’s discussion of his work as a consultant for the U.S. government at the
detention center located in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (see Chapter 12 and the full-length
essay online), will likewise be informative and intriguing. In a Close-up in Chapter 2
on the career of Henry Herbert Goddard—also new to this edition—many students
(and instructors) alike will be surprised to learn facts about this most controversial fig-
ure in the history of assessment who they may not have known before. For example,
how many of us were aware that Goddard served as the first coach for the University of
California football team?(!)
And speaking of Close-ups—the pedagogical tool employed in each chapter since
the first edition to focus in on a particular aspect of testing and assessment—we believe
that students and instructors alike will find a wealth of useful information in the wide
array of topics covered in our seventh edition Close-ups. For example, the Close-up in
Chapter 1 (new to this edition), tackles the growing controversy regarding the issue of
third-party presence during test administration. In Chapter 5, the Close-up, also new to
this edition, introduces students to item response theory (IRT)—just the beginning of
expanded coverage of IRT throughout this book. In Chapter 12, the Close-up presents
timely material on measures of acculturation.
Beyond intriguing assessment-related sidebars, there is a great deal of content
that is new to this edition, and new about it. Of course, we have updated the text with
regard to relevant information about selected new or widely used tests that have been
published since our last edition. This updating includes, for example, discussion of
the MMPI-2-Restructured Form. And as you might expect, we have updated the text
with new test-related legislation, judicial decisions, and administrative regulations
that have gone into effect since our last edition. Additionally, expanded and updated
coverage is also presented on a wide variety of assessment-related topics. A partial
listing of what is new in this seventh edition (and not already alluded to previously
or elsewhere) includes material on: behavioral profiling, biopsychosocial assessment,
the clock drawing test, collaborative assessment, dynamic assessment, implicit atti-
tudes, implicit motives, and implicit memory. Also included is new material on vari-
ous luminaries in the field of assessment such as Lev Vygotsky and John E. Exner Jr.
We have always been the clear leader among general measurement textbooks in terms
of culture-related issues in measurement, and this proud tradition continues in the
seventh edition.
Complementing judicious selection of manuscript content is an art program that
has far-and-away led the field among measurement textbooks. In an era in which
most comparable texts featured an illustration or two —usually a picture of a test
material—we pioneered the use of photos and other illustrations to provide meaning-
ful images to be associated with the concepts being discussed. See, for example, the
series of photos used to illustrate a computer-assisted method of quantifying back
stress (Chapter 1), the turn-of-the-century photo of the immigrant being tested at Ellis
Island to supplement the presentation of historical facts (Chapter 2), and the dra-
matic photo capturing hockey violence in the context of discussion of the Aggression
Questionnaire (Chapter 12). In the world of textbooks, such photos may not seem
very revolutionary. And maybe they are not. However, in the world of measurement
Preface xvii
, 6 Cohen−Swerdlik: Front Matter Preface © The McGraw−Hill
Psychological Testing and Companies, 2010
Assessment: An
Introduction to Tests and
Measurement, Seventh
Edition
textbooks, our innovative art program was indeed revolutionary (and by all accounts,
still is). Photos and other illustrations complementing the text enrich the presentation
and make it more meaningful— a fact mentioned again and again in student reviews
of our book.
The objective of incorporating timely, relevant, and intriguing illustrations of
assessment-related material is furthered by several pedagogical tools built in to the text.
We have already made reference to our strategic use of Close-ups. Another pedagogical
tool we innovated seven editions ago is Everyday Psychometrics. In each chapter of the
book, relevant, practical, and “everyday” examples of the material being discussed is
highlighted in an Everyday Psychometrics box. For example, in the Everyday Psychomet-
rics presented in Chapter 1, students will be introduced to accommodations made in
the testing of persons with handicapping conditions. In Chapter 4, Putting Tests to the
Test equips students with a working overview of the variables they need to be thinking
about when reading about a test and evaluating how satisfactory the test really is for
the purpose being described. In Chapter 5, the subject of the Everyday Psychometrics is
the reliability of the instrumentation used by law enforcement authorities to measure
alcoholic intoxication.
New to this seventh edition is a pedagogical tool we call Meet an Assessment Pro-
fessional. By way of background, we invited a number of people employed in various
assessment-related areas to write an essay introducing themselves (and students) to
the work that they do. Each chapter presents an excerpt of one essay, with the complete
essay available online on our companion instructional website, www.mcgrawhill.com/
test7 (which, by the way, also contains a wealth of other course-enhancing, assessment-
related information for students). Collectively, the essays serve the purpose of empha-
sizing the practical value of learning about psychological tests and the assessment
enterprise. They provide students with an instructive and often intriguing glimpse
into the everyday life for an assessment professional. They also provide accomplished
professionals with a forum to share insights, experiences, and advice with students.
So, for example, in Chapter 4, students will meet a team of test users, Dr. Howard Atlas
and Dr. Steve Julius, who have pressed psychometric knowledge into the service of
professional sports. They provide a unique and fascinating account of how application
of their knowledge of regression was used to improve the on-court achievement of the
Chicago Bulls.
Critical thinking may be defined as “the active employment of judgment capabilities
and evaluative skills in the thought process” (Cohen, 1994, p. 12). Generative thinking
may be defined as “the goal-oriented intellectual production of new or creative ideas”
(Cohen, 1994, p. 13). The exercise of both of these processes, we believe, helps optimize
one’s chances for success in the academic world as well as in more applied pursuits. In
previous editions, questions to stimulate critical and generative thinking were raised
“the old-fashioned way.” That is, they were right in the text, and usually part of a para-
graph. Acting on the advice of reviewers, we made this special feature of our writing
even more special beginning with the previous (sixth) edition of this book; we raised
these critical-thinking questions in a more prominent way by presenting them in the
margins to the text with a Just Think . . . heading. Perhaps with some encouragement
from their instructors, motivated students will do their part and give thoughtful con-
sideration to these Just Think questions.
In addition to critical thinking and generative thinking questions called out in
the text, other pedagogical aids in this book include original cartoons created by the
authors, original illustrations created by the authors (including the model of memory
presented in the chapter on neuropsychological assessment), and original acronyms
xviii Preface
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