Foundations of Psychological Testing

The third edition of this text offers a straight forward and clear introduction to the basics of psychological testing as well as to psychometrics and statistics for students new to the field. The authors focus on relating core ideas to practical situations that students will recognize and relate to. They provide a variety of pedagogical tools that promote student understanding of the underlying concepts required to interpret and to use test scores. Primarily concerned with preparing students to become informed consumers and users of tests, the text also features a final section focusing on how tests are utilized in three important settings: education, clinical and counseling practice, and organizations. This title instructs using an effective conversational tone, such as in the discussion of true scores and error in classical test theory-concepts with which students typically struggle. It incorporates more discussion of specific tests in response to reviewer feedback, with direct examples from published tests and more details of tests featured in 'Test Spotlights'. It provides new material on using validity generalization strategies in pre-employment testing and on traditional versus authentic assessment. It includes updates for all relevant chapters to reflect how the APA Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing treats validity as a unitary concept rather than discussing different types of validity. It focuses on validity as the appropriateness of the inferences made from test scores rather than whether a test measures what it was designed to measure. It offers even more discussion questions, useful for guiding classroom learning. It features: rich pedagogical tools, such as chapter-opening narratives; 'For Your Information' boxes highlighting interesting related material; 'In the News' boxes featuring testing stories from the news and 'On the Web' boxes offering useful web resources; summary sections throughout chapters; and, chapter-ending 'Engaging in the Learning Process' sections with interactive learning activities and self-test questions.