Psychometrics

Psychometrics involves psychological and educational assessment of the subject by way of measuring attitudes, personality, abilities and knowledge. The field has two primary focuses; the creation of measurement instruments and procedures and development and enhancement of existing methodology employed. The concept of psychometric testing, introduced long before the establishment of IQ testing and other current methodologies, was first explored by Francis Galton who developed the first testing procedures supposedly related to intelligence; however, his measurement tools were in fact based upon physical and physiological benchmarks rather than testing of the mind itself. Measurements included the physical power, height and weight of subjects which were recorded and results used to estimate the intelligence of subjects. While the approach was not successful, the studies conducted by Galton were to influence the work of future researchers. Approaches to measurement of intelligence, which is defined as the mind’s relative ability to reason, think, conceptually plan, solve problems, understand and learn, were later developed by pioneers such as Charles Spearman. Significant contributions to its early development were also made by Wilhelm Wundt, L.L. Thurstone, Ernst Heinrich Weber and Gustav Fechner. The most well-known traditional approach to development of psychometric instruments to measure intelligence is the Stanford-Binet IQ test, originally developed by French psychologist Alfred Binet. Researchers define intelligence as separate to other attributes such as personality,…