To gain firsthand experience in gathering information about psychological tests and investigating sources to measure psychological constructs.

GENERAL INFORMATION:

Test catalogues, manuals, reviews and published research on psychological tests can help prospective users make informed choices about testing instruments and procedures. Questions are asked such as, “Is this test appropriate for use in employee selection?” “Does this test have predictive validity?” “What is an appropriate measure of some psychological construct?” Test users need to use more than their gut feeling; they need facts!

YOUR HOMEWORK:

For this assignment, you may choose a psychological construct/disorder that interests you. Your task is to select a single test or technique that could be used to measure or evaluate this construct. The test you choose must be the most recent version of that test. For example, if you choose the MMPI (originally published in 1940), then be sure your assignment examines the MMPI-2, which was published in 1989. The library has a number of resources for investigating psychologist tests: Tests in Print V (TIP V), Mental Measurements Yearbook (MMY), and Psyc Info. For your project, you may find additional resources useful, such as Test Critiques or other books that review a specific test or categories of tests. A list of some of these additional resources are included herein. 

Requirements for this exercise:

1) Begin by investigating recent research on this topic to ascertain how the construct is being assessed. Use the construct as a key term in your search. You should
     peruse a variety of articles including reviews, original research, and discussion papers. 

2)  Locate the most recent entry for your test in the MMY. Write the volume number of the MMY and photocopy the entry through the critical review(s) (exclude
     the list of references). You can access the MMY online via the Odum Library by clicking here.

3)  Use PsycINFO, Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection, or PsycARTICLES  to locate two article abstracts related to this construct (no
     dissertation abstracts). For a short-cut to these databases, click here. Each article must describe a test validation study.  Photocopy or print out the article
     abstracts; the complete articles will not be needed for this assignment.

4)  Complete the exercise worksheet in this section from the information available in MMY. The exercise worksheet is a fillable and savable pdf form; you can
      type your responses rather than handwriting them.

5)  Staple the article abstracts to the assignment worksheet. 

VSU's library has a "Tests and Measurements" page that you may find useful as well. You may also want to examine the ERIC Clearinghouse website on Assessment and Evaluation (http://ericae.net/)