DIFFERENT TYPES OF PSYCHOMETRIC
TESTSPsychometrics is defined as ‘Branch of psychology dealing with measurable factors’.Psychometric tests are composed of individual items .But common characteristics of tests are not applied to individual items. Depending on items designed in these tests they are divided into fallowing types, Knowledge
based and person based,
objective tests and
open ended tests, norm
reference and criterion reference testing .knowledge based and person based:Knowledge based items are used in educational tests and intelligence tests. Knowledge based tests measure ability, aptitude and achievement. Know ledge based tests are hierarchical and cumulative, because human knowledge always progresses. Person based tests are designed to measure personality, clinical symptoms, mood or attitude. There is no comparison between items. It is not possible to compare between quality of items either in advancement or goodness.The items in psychometric tests are divided into two types depending on the type of testing. They are objective type and open ended type :Objective type are usually true or false, or multiple choice. In objective type the author decides in advance exactly what defines the correct response. There is no room for error Open ended tests are used in education and creative tests. An example to open ended test are ‘how many uses can you think of for a brick?’Depending on the construction they are divided intoWhen the test is constructed to evaluate performance in some chosen criterion it is called as criterion reference. Example to this is ‘driving a car’, here the performance of an individual in car driving is not compared with other people. When the test is constructed to grade the score of a person in comparison with the whole population of respondents it is called as norm reference. Example to this is grading ( like A,B,C,D.)the results of a classroom exam in a group of students.