Some emerging trends in psychological measurement: A fifty-year perspective

Abstract

Developments in psychological measurement over a 50-year period reveal a growing awareness of the modifiability of human behavior, as exemplified in cross-cultural comparisons, as well as in intergenerational changes within a single culture. Implications for testing are examined with special reference to the need for considering the context in which test takers developed and the contexts in which they are expected to function. Norms are viewed as the test performance of a population at a particular time and place. This orientation affects the interpretation of test scores. At a more basic level, cohort studies reveal systematic population changes. Cognitive scores may rise or decline, depending on concomitant societal changes. Progressive changes in attitudes, self-concepts, and other affective traits may in turn influence cognitive development. Affective variables may thus serve as intervening variables in the complex chain of events from genes to aptitudes. The traits identified by factor analysis are being increasingly recognized as descriptive categories for summarizing behavioral consistencies, rather than as underlying, fixed, causal entities. For testing purposes, this orientation provides flexibility in developing and choosing tests that fit the needed level, from highly specific behavioral units, through group factors of intermediate breadth, to theoretical viewpoint, the question of factor formation becomes meaningful, insofar as the very traits into which intelligence becomes organized reflect the influence of individuals’ learning histories and the experiential contexts in which they were reared.