A psychological test is a test that helps scientists understand how people think and behave (Furr & Bacharach, 2013). It has a set of questions or tasks that everyone taking the test has to do, and it’s designed to figure out things about the person that can’t be seen, like their personality or how their mind works. The test can be made up of different kinds of questions or tasks, and it’s important that everyone who takes the test has the same chance of doing well. A good test is one that gives consistent results and has been shown to be a fair way of measuring what it’s supposed to measure (Furr & Bacharach, 2013). Sometimes, scientists compare the scores people get on the test to see how well they did compared to other people who have taken the test before, these comparisons are called “test norms” (Moosbrugger & Kelava, 2012).
Furr, R. M., & Bacharach, V. R. (2013). Psychometrics: An introduction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Moosbrugger, H., & Kelava, A. (2012). Testtheorie und Fragebogenkonstruktion (Test theory and construction of questionnaires). Heidelberg: Springer.
