Judgment test

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Judgment tests , judgment methods or judgment procedures are those psychological tests where the answer consists in giving an assessment, a judgment . “Judgment methods are methods that trigger judgment behavior.” “According to the paradigmatic system of methods, four types of data can be distinguished: performance data, judgment data, design data and interpretation data.” In contrast to performance tests, there are no right or wrong answers, but usually these to select the most appropriate answer for a given situation (personal well-being, self-image ). The individual answers can differ according to the degree of social desirability , the admission of socially undesirable experiences and behaviors (e.g. symptoms or small human weaknesses) can only be expected under certain conditions in judgment procedures (willingness to make judgments must exist).

Examples

Examples of items :

  • I am a quick decision maker (yes - no)
  • I have heart pain (never - rarely - sometimes - often)
  • I am in favor of the stricter application of laws (does not apply - applies somewhat - applies very precisely)

Typical assessment requirements are

  • the presence of a certain behavior (yes - no)
  • the degree of accuracy of statements for a person
  • the frequency with which certain experiences or behaviors occur.

The assessment can be two-stage ( dichotomous ) or multi-stage. Examples of the latter are "never - rarely - sometimes - often" or "does not apply - somewhat applies - applies exactly".

Assessment objects can be very diverse. (Personality traits, complaints, interests, attitudes, characteristics that describe mood, etc.).

Demarcation

  • The term questionnaire is also very common for judgment tests, which are psychological tests . But not every questionnaire is a test (e.g. when applying for a passport).
  • The term personality test also only partially coincides with it. Personality traits are often recorded by means of judgment processes . Projective tests are also used to record personality traits. Furthermore, performance characteristics (e.g. intelligence ) are also assigned to the personality traits or characteristics. Finally, in the concept of objective tests, performance tests are also used to record personality traits in the narrower sense.

Appraiser

The perspective of the person to be diagnosed is important. A distinction is still made as to who is judging. A "self-assessment" is when the person to be diagnosed judges himself. These can be used if the willingness and ability to make an adequate and unbiased assessment is available. External assessments, however, are carried out by third parties. This can be done, for example, with children by parents, teachers, other educators; Work colleagues, behavioral assessments are carried out by the diagnostician. Contradictions between self-assessment and third-party assessment in tests can be used specifically for diagnostic purposes to reveal differences. The Giessen test, for example, enables the partner to compare the self-image in the partnership with the respective external image.

Types of judgment methods

Judgment tendencies and errors

Answer tendencies can be in terms of content or form:

Content-related response tendencies

  • Answers according to social desirability (better self-portrayal than actual self-concept, problem of a lack of honesty , but this is common in application situations)
  • Aggravation or exaggeration of existing characteristics (e.g. complaints in order to receive therapy / pension)
  • Trivialization or understatement of existing characteristics
  • Simulation rather than consciously admitting abnormalities
  • Dissimulation rather than consciously denying abnormalities
  • Halo effect
  • Retrospection effect (recall bias) (the memory and assessment is influenced by the current state, this can be positive or negative)
  • Rezenzeffekt (recency effect): Later incoming information has greater impact on judgment than previous
  • Primary effect (primacy effect): Early in-depth information is better remembered than later incoming
  • Hindsight errors (distortion of the original predictions regarding the actual outcomes)

Formal response tendencies

  • Acquiescence yes-say or no-say tendency
  • Tendency towards middle / extreme shyness or tendency towards extreme answers with multi-level answer scales
  • Effects of the item order (position effects)

Assessment ability

In order to use judgment tests, there must also be sufficient judgment ( judgment ). In children and adolescents, the ability for self-reflection only develops from a certain age ("lived - experienced - reflected life"). Intellectual skills must also be sufficiently developed or not degraded (when used in the context of diagnosing dementia ). Pragmatically, some tests require an intelligence quotient of 80, which should be included in the test if necessary.

literature

  • Hans-Dieter Mummendey, Ina Grau: The questionnaire method: Basics and application in personality, attitude and self-concept research , 6th corrected edition, Hogrefe, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8017-1948-7
  • Manfred Amelang, Lothar Schmidt-Atzert, 4th completely revised and expanded edition, Springer, Heidelberg 2006, ISBN 3-540-28462-1 , p. 240 ff

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Lothar Sprung, Helga Sprung: Methodology of Psychology: System and History . In: Journal for differential and diagnostic psychology . Beltz, 2000, p. 42 , doi : 10.1024 // 0170-1789.21.1.31 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  2. ↑ Lothar Sprung, Helga Sprung: A short history of psychology and its methods . Profil Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-89019-649-7 , p. 178 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  3. ↑ Friedrich Sixtl: Measuring methods of psychology: theoretical fundamentals and problems . 2nd Edition. Beltz, 1982, ISBN 3-407-54611-4 , pp. 32 ( limited preview in Google Book search).