Foundations of Psychological Testing: A Practical Approach

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.

New and Proven Features

- 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

- 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”

- Provides new material on using validity generalization strategies in pre-employment testing and on traditional versus authentic assessment

- 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

- 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

- Offers even more discussion questions, useful for guiding classroom learning

- 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

Robert L. Lovler, Ph.D., has over 30 years of experience working both as an internal and external consultant to Fortune 500 companies in the areas of employee assessment and selection, organizational development, strategic human resource consulting, and training design and delivery. His career began at CBS Inc. where he served in a several roles including Director of Training for their retail consumer electronics unit, then moving up to Vice- President of two different units within the CBS Publishing Group. He is currently is Vice-President of Human Resources and Practice Leader for Selection and Assessment at Wilson Learning Corporation, a consulting firm which focuses on human performance improvement. During his career, he has had the opportunity to design and implement a wide range of organizational interventions both domestically and internationally, working in Japan, China, Korea, Hong Kong, England and Italy. In the U.S., he supervised the development and implementation of the assessment center used to select candidates for entry into the Environmental Protection Agency's Senior Executive Service Development Program, presenting the results in Washington D.C. to Governor Christie Todd Whitman, the EPA Administrator. He also developed the selection system used to help select commercial airline pilots for a major U.S. airline and worked with former Senator Warren Rudman to develop and implement a nationwide survey of sales practices in the rent-to-own industry. He has served as a testing consultant to the California Bar Association, the state of Pennsylvania and oversaw the development of the licensure examinations for medical physicists in the state of Texas. He has been on the adjunct faculty of the State University of New York at Farmingdale, Hofstra University and the University of Central Florida. He holds master's and Ph.D. degrees from Hofstra University and is a member of the Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology. Leslie A. Miller, Ph.D., PHR has broad experience in consulting, teaching, and researching in the area of organizational and educational assessment, measurement, and development. Currently the owner of her own consulting business, LanneM TM LLC, she provides her clients with pragmatic and affordable talent management solutions-solutions to help them acquire, develop, and retain the talent they need to achieve desired business results today and in the future. Her expertise includes designing performance improvement/management tools and knowledge tests, customizing and facilitating leadership training programs, providing assessment-based executive coaching, and designing and implementing business impact evaluation and return on value studies. She also spends a significant amount of her time teaching graduate business, organizational behavior/leadership, and human resource courses at Rollins College and for the School of Advanced Studies at the University of Phoenix as well as mentoring doctoral learners through the dissertation process. Previously the vice president of leadership development/human resources at the Central Florida YMCA, she was responsible for contributing to the strategic plans of the organization by leading the association's talent management initiatives-recruiting, developing, and retaining the association's talent. Prior to joining the YMCA, she was employed by Wilson Learning Corporation (WLC), a performance improvement company,where she served as the director of business solutions, a senior project manager, and a business solutions consultant. In these roles, she was responsible for conceptualizing, designing, managing, and implementing traditional and technology-based assessment,measurement, and training performance improvement solutions for client organizations. Prior to joining WLC, she served as the assistant dean of admissions at Rollins College, where she was also a faculty member of the psychology, organizational behavior, and human resources programs. Before joining Rollins College, she was a senior research psychologist for the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, in Washington, D.C. At the Bureau, she designed, researched, and analyzed the results of some of our nation's most important surveys. In her current and previous roles, she has worked with various leading organizations in the high-tech, financial, pharmaceutical, and transportation industries. With a Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Maryland, she has an extensive list of publications. Sandra A.McIntire, Ph.D., received her bachelor's and master's degrees in psychology and her doctor of philosophy degree in industrial/organizational psychology from the University of South Florida. She began her career in the human resources department of the city of Clearwater, Florida, and moved into consulting with Wilson Learning Corporation (WLC) as a senior project manager. At WLC, she developed the first retail video selection test, the Teller Selection Program (TAP). She also consulted with Fortune 500 companies such as Citibank NA, United Technologies, IBM, and General Motors. In 1991, she accepted a tenure track professorship in the department of psychology at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. In addition to teaching social science statistics, research methods, and tests and measurements, she served as director of the psychology program for nontraditional students in Rollins's Hamilton Holt School. She has collaborated on three books: The Job Analysis Kit, Organization Development: Strategies for a Changing Environment, and Foundations of Psychological Testing (first and second editions). In addition, she has served as a book reviewer for Personnel Psychology. She has collaborated on peer-reviewed research and made numerous presentations to national organizations such as the American Society for Training and Development, the American Psychological Association, and the Southeastern Conference on Teaching of Psychology. Dr. McIntire is now retired from Rollins College.