Modern psychometrics : the science of psychological assessment / John Rust and Susan Golombok.

Today psychometrics plays an increasingly important role in all our lives as testing and assessment occurs from preschool until retirement. This book introduces the reader to the subject in all its aspects, ranging from its early history, school examinations, how to construct your own test, controversies about IQ and recent developments in testing on the internet. In Part one of Modern Psychometrics, Rust and Golombok outline the history of the field and discuss central theoretical issues such as IQ, personality and integrity testing and the impact of computer technology

Part one; 1 The development of psychometrics; Psychometrics today; The history of psychometrics; Issues in intelligence testing; The ethics of IQ testing; Summary; 2 The objectives of testing and assessment; Psychometrics and sociobiology; Is psychometrics a science?; What does psychometrics measure?; The theory of true scores; The true psychometrics: trait or function?; Summary; 3 The process of test construction; Knowledge-based and person-based questionnaires. Objective and open-ended testsNorm-referenced and criterion-referenced testing; Obtaining test scores by summing item scores; The correction for guessing in objective knowledge-based tests; Summary; 4 Item analysis; Classical item analysis statistics for knowledge-based tests; Classical item analysis for person-based tests; Item analysis in criterion-referenced testing; Psychological traits, true scores and internal test structure; Classical item analysis for more complex situations; Summary; 5 Characteristics of tests; Reliability; Validity; Standardisation; Normalisation; Summary. 6 Bias in testing and assessmentBias and fairness; Forms of bias; Item bias; Intrinsic test bias; Extrinsic test bias; Summary; 7 Factor analysis; The correlation coefficient; The application of factor analysis to test construction; Criticisms of the classical factor analytic approach; Special uses of factor analysis in test construction; Summary; 8 Using psychometrics in educational settings; Questioning the examination system; Measuring ability in schoolchildren; Measuring achievement in schoolchildren; Ability-achievement discrepancy analysis; Summary. 9 Personality theory and clinical assessmentDefinitions of personality; Genetic vs. environmental influences on personality; Theories of personality; Types vs. traits; Approaches to personality assessment; Sources and management of sabotage; Informal methods of personality assessment; State vs. trait measures; Ipsative scaling; Spurious validity and the Barnum effect; Assessment in clinical psychology; Summary; 10 Psychometric assessment of personality in occupational settings; The Big Five model; Orpheus: a work-based personality questionnaire that assesses the Big Five; The Orpheus scales. The psychometric characteristics of OrpheusUsing Orpheus; Summary; 11 Ethical test use and integrity testing; Administrative procedures for psychometric testing; Integrity testing; Theories of integrity; Giotto: a psychometric test of integrity; Summary; 12 Psychometrics in the information technology age; Computerisation; Artificial intelligence; Summary; Part two; 13 Constructing your own questionnaire; The purpose of the questionnaire; Making a blueprint; Writing items; Designing the questionnaire; Piloting the questionnaire; Item analysis; Reliability; Validity; Standardisation.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-247) and index.