Psychological testing

Psychological testing refers to the administration of psychological tests. A psychological test is “an objective and standardized measure of a sample of behavior”.

The most common type of test, are a series of items. Performance on these items produce a test score. A score on a well-constructed test is believed to reflect a psychological construct such as achievement in a school subject, cognitive ability, aptitude, emotional functioning, personality, etc.

The technical term for the science behind psychological testing is psychometrics.

Psychological assessment is similar to psychological testing but usually involves a more comprehensive assessment of the individual. Psychological assessment is a process that involves checking the integration of information from multiple sources, such as-

Many psychologists do some level of assessment when providing services to clients or patients. It is done for treatment settings; to assess a particular area of functioning or disability often for school settings; to help select type of treatment or to assess treatment outcomes or to help assess job applicants or employees and provide career development counseling or training.