Psychometric tests in adults
Why psychometrics
The human mind is one of the most advanced machines ever engineered. Understanding it can be a daunting process. The division of an individual’s mental makeup into the conscious, sub conscious and unconscious processes, adds to the intriguing nature of human thought, emotion and behavior. Severity of a fracture or diarrhea is easier to estimate than is that of sadness. There is no physical test that measures depression (unlike a hemoglobin analysis in anemia or CT scan revealing a tumor). In these situations, psychometric tests offer a detailed evaluation of thought and emotion even though they seem like abstract concepts that seemingly cannot be quantified.
What we need to know
There are many dimensions to psychological illness. Stress, anxiety and depression all have physical manifestations. While these are measurable, the cause is still unknown. Psychometric instruments identify thinking styles, emotional processes and behavior patterns that contribute to mental illness. Some tests are diagnostic (they point to a condition that was previously unknown e.g. personality style) while other tests are prognostic (they gauge the severity of depression or anxiety or IQ and watch it change over time). These tests provide vital and fundamental information.
Hidden and expressed aspects of behavior
Human behavior has observable as well as latent constructs. When psychological tests are applied, there is need to observe concealed variables too. Typically an assessment test has a series of tasks or problems that the person being assessed has to solve. But psychological tests are not just measures of ability. These tests can strongly resemble close ended questionnaires, which enquire about the person’s behavior in different situations. What we seek is not the maximum performance from the individual but the typical usual performance of that individual which can help us identify how this person is feeling at most times and why he is feeling that way. An intelligence test seeks the best functioning but a personality test looks for a standard routine, which defines an individual. A blend of different subjective and objective tests can give a complete picture of the person’s mind.
Measures of efficiency of tests
- Standardization – assures that they are conducted with consistency and stability
- Objectivity – to remove subjective judgments and avoid bias during the reporting
- Norms – to ascertain that there is a common frame of reference for comparison
- Reliability – to determine that one gets the same result after multiple testing
- Validity – establishes that the test will measure what it was intended to measure
Confidentiality in reporting
We understand and respect confidentiality of all patients and clients. We (under ethical conventions) never disclose psychological test reports to any external source. We give you detailed reports of the tests with comparison to existent standards and provide in depth explanation of the findings. The focus has always been client cantered. Information gained in our clinical setting stays within the walls of the clinic. Even in relationship conflicts where we assess personality styles of different people involved, care is taken to regard the privacy of each. In research presentations, we never quote patients or clients except in a few cases where we have taken their permission to disclose their psychometric test findings but concealed their identity prior to doing so.
Expert assessment
Psychological tests, like the human mind are ever evolving. The Flynn effect measures a rise in intelligence with every passing year, thus it explicates how human mind is continually evolving. Likewise psychological tests and their norms need to be updated at frequent intervals. The assessment reports prepared at MINDFRAMES are in keeping with the recent research findings and are famed for accuracy and precision. They offer state of the art explanation of psychological makeup and assist the diagnosis and the treatment process.