What should you know about psychological testing?

What is a psychological test? Psychological testing refers to a scientific way to measure the differences in the intelligence level and personality of the person being evaluated through a series of scientific methods.

Principles of psychological testing

1. Personal privacy must be protected. Because psychological tests involve personal privacy in terms of personal intelligence, abilities, etc., strictly speaking, these contents should only be known to the subject and the people he wants to know. Therefore, the relevant test contents should be kept strictly confidential.

2. Before taking the psychological test, you must first make preparations. There is a strict order in the selection of psychological test content, test implementation and scoring, and interpretation of test results. Generally speaking, the examiner and tester must receive strict training in psychological testing.

3. The main test must be fully prepared in advance, including speaking the test instructions uniformly; preparing test materials; being able to master the specific implementation procedures of the test proficiently; making the conditions of each test the same as possible, Only in this way can the test results be more accurate.

Functions of psychological testing (1) From the perspective of practical application: talent selection, job placement, diagnosis, evaluation, and auxiliary consultation.

(2) From the perspective of theoretical research: collecting data, proposing and verifying hypotheses, and grouping experiments.

1. Correct concept of testing:

(1) Testing is one of the important psychological research methods and an auxiliary tool for decision-making.

(2) Psychological testing is not yet complete as a research method and measurement tool. The biggest problem with psychological testing is that the theoretical foundation is not solid enough.

(3) Treat tests scientifically to prevent random fabrication and abuse.

2. Wrong views on testing: the theory that tests are omnipotent, that tests are useless, culturally fair tests (there is only relative cultural fairness, not absolute cultural fairness), and psychological tests are intelligence tests.

Contents of psychological tests The contents of psychological tests include:

1. Ability test

1. General ability tests mainly include tests on thinking ability, imagination ability, memory ability, reasoning ability, analytical ability, mathematical ability, spatial relationship judgment ability, language ability, etc.

2. Special professional ability test: Special professional ability refers to the abilities of those special occupations or occupational groups. The purpose of this test is to select those who have special potential to engage in a certain occupation.

3. Psychomotor function tests mainly include two categories, namely psychomotor ability tests and physical ability tests.

2. Personality test

The purpose of personality testing is to understand the personality traits of candidates.

3. Interest test

Interest tests reveal what people want to do and like to do, which can be used to discover what jobs candidates are most interested in and get the most satisfaction from.

Types of psychological tests There are many types of psychological tests. According to a survey by American psychologists in 1961, there were almost 3,000 types of psychological test scales at that time. For everyone’s convenience, we subjectively divide them into the following types.

1. According to the test content, psychological tests can be divided into intelligence tests, aptitude tests, achievement tests, personality tests, etc.
   An intelligence test is to test the intelligence level of the person being tested. A person’s intelligence level is expressed by intelligence quotient (IQ). For some fixed jobs, it is best to choose people with IQs that are coordinated with work needs. For example, a job requires workers to have an IQ of around 120. Well, people with IQs below or above this number are not particularly suitable. Those with low IQs will find the work difficult, while those with high IQs will be dissatisfied with the status quo and even despise the work.

Aptitude tests are also called aptitude tests. The purpose is to discover the potential talents of the test subjects and gain an in-depth understanding of their strengths and development tendencies. Aptitude tests can generally be divided into general aptitude tests and special aptitude tests. General aptitude test tests a person’s special potential in many aspects. A special aptitude test tests a person’s individual potential ability, such as musical ability or mechanical ability.

Personality tests are also called personality tests: they test psychological indicators such as emotions, needs, motivations, interests, attitudes, personality, temperament, etc.

2. According to the test medium, the test can be divided into verbal and written tests and non-verbal and written tests.
   Language or writing tests are tests conducted through question and answer or written answers. This is an important method of psychological testing and is relatively easy to prepare and implement. Some advanced human mental abilities can only be tested using language. The later analysis of this testing method is more standardized and has fewer variables, so this method is often used for group testing. However, this method cannot be applied to people who have difficulty in language or character recognition, and it is difficult to compare test subjects with differences in language and cultural backgrounds. Non-verbal tests or operational tests include various tests that use drawings, instruments, models, tools, and physical objects as test media. The testee reflects his or her psychology to the tester by using, identifying, interpreting, or operating the test medium in real time. Imaging, the tester evaluates the psychological characteristics and mental state reflected in these images based on certain interpretation rules or patterns. Non-verbal tests are suitable for people with language expression difficulties, and are also suitable for test subjects who compare differences in language and cultural backgrounds. Some special ability tests, such as psychological tests of visual perception ability, association ability and graphic judgment ability, must use non-verbal testing media.

3. According to the number of people being tested, psychological testing can be divided into individual testing and group testing.
   Individual tests can only be conducted by the same examiner on one subject at the same time. The advantage of individual testing is that the tester can conduct specific and careful observations of the subject’s speech and emotional state, and has sufficient opportunities to arouse the subject’s cooperation to ensure that the test results are sufficient and reliable. The disadvantages of individual tests are that the test procedures are complex, time-consuming, and require a high degree of cooperation between the tester and the person being tested.

Group testing allows one tester to test several people at the same time. Many educational tests are group tests, and some intelligence tests can also be group tests. The advantage of group testing is that it saves time and can receive a relatively large amount of information per unit time. Testers do not need to undergo strict professional training to be able to perform the task. The disadvantage is that the behavior of the test subject cannot be controlled in detail, and the results obtained are not as accurate and reliable as individual tests.

4. From the perspective of testing methods, it can be divided into questionnaire-based testing, homework-based testing, and projective testing. According to different test purposes, psychological tests can also be divided into difficulty tests and speed tests.
   The function of the difficulty test is to test the subject’s mastery of a certain aspect of knowledge. This kind of test is generally time-limited, and the time standard given is usually the time that allows 95% of the test subjects to complete the test. The tests are generally arranged from easy to difficult to test the subject’s highest ability to solve difficult problems.

The speed test is to test how quickly the testee completes the homework. The test questions in this test are of equal difficulty, but the time is strictly limited. The key is to see the number of questions completed within the specified time.

Measures for psychological testing If we want to give full play to the role of psychological testing in employee recruitment, we need to try our best to overcome and prevent possible adverse effects. The following measures should be taken:

1. Standardization. When we implement psychological tests in employee recruitment, we must try to use standardized scales, standardized instructions, standardized environments, and standardized procedures, so that we can get a more accurate test result.

2. Strictness. When we conduct psychological tests, we should have the guidance of specially trained psychological experts. In addition, the test scale should be kept confidential as much as possible, and irrelevant personnel should not be exposed to the scale, especially the standard answers of the scale. Furthermore, when we conduct psychological tests, we must be cautious in our evaluation, so that we can evaluate a person’s psychological quality and his potential abilities comprehensively, logically, and scientifically.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Psychological Testing

1. Psychological testing has many advantages in employee recruitment, mainly the following four points:

1. Quickly. Psychological testing can quickly understand a person’s psychological quality, potential abilities and various indicators in a short period of time.

2. More scientific. There is currently no completely scientific way in the world that can comprehensively understand a person’s psychological quality and potential abilities in a short period of time. However, psychological tests currently provide a more scientific understanding of a person’s basic qualities.

3. Relatively fair. There is often a tendency for unfair competition in employee recruitment, but psychological testing can avoid this unfairness to a certain extent. Because through the psychological test, employees with relatively high psychological quality can stand out, while applicants with low psychological quality will feel calm if they are unsuccessful because they know that their psychological test scores are relatively low.

4. Can be compared. After the employees’ quality has passed the intelligence test, their test results can be compared, because the results obtained using the same psychological test method are comparable, while other methods are often incomparable in different situations and locations.

2. Psychological testing also has the following disadvantages:

1. May be abused. Although psychological testing is a scientific measurement method, it can also be abused. For example, some people abuse unqualified scales in employee recruitment and repeatedly use a certain unscientific scale, so that the conclusions drawn are unsatisfactory.

2. May be misinterpreted. Sometimes, after you measure a certain result and misinterpret it, it may have adverse consequences for someone’s psychological behavior and future behavior. For example, some people think that those with high IQs will definitely be successful. Then when they see people with low IQs, they will feel a sense of contempt.

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