IOP4861 Complete notes latest.

Outcome 1: 1 - The history of psychological assessment in general, and in the South African context, is discussed in depth and critically analysed in terms of its impact on enhancing and developing fair assessment practices to date. History of psychological assessment in the South African context: Early years: Assessment can be traced back to early times. Assessment has roots in the following: • Astrology o Using position of stars and planets to determine personal attributes. • Physiognomy o Judging character by external features of the body, especially the face, in relation to the similarity these features have with those of animals. • Humorology o Four body humours (blood, yellow bile, black bile, phlegm). o Four types of temperament relating to these humours (sanguine, choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic). o Only hypothesis, never objectively verified. o Assosciated with introversion/extroversion and emotionally stable/emotionally unstable personality types. o Forms basis of Myers Briggs type indicator and 16 personality factor questionnaire. • Phrenology o Science of reading people’s heads. o Belief that brain consists of various organs that correspond with personality types and cognitive faculties. o By feeling bumps on the head one could determine personality. • Chirology o Palmreading to determine personality. • Graphology o Study of handwriting. SA was a British colony. Assessment stems from this heritage. Introduction of psychological assessment followed a similar pattern to USA and Europe. Important to note that the different context that the development in SA took place in. Psychological assessment developed in an environment characterised by unequal distribution of resources based on racial differences. Assessment reflected this racially segregated society. Apartheid politics impacted the development of assessment. Early assessments standardised only for whites and used by education department to place white pupils in special education. Early measures were adaptations of overseas measures. These adaptations were not only standardised for whites but also driven by political ideologies. Measures in intelligence were used to draw distinctions between races and show superiority of one group over the other. The early use of assessment measures in industry Gained momentum after WW2 in 1948 when the Nationalist government came to power. Measures developed in response to societal need. There was an urgent need to identify the occupational suitability (especially for work on the mines) of a large number of Africans who had received very little formal education. One of the better methods of this time was the General Adaptability Battery (GAB). This included a practice session during the test. Mainly used for the preliterate African population. Due to job reservation and better educational opportunities, whites competed for different jobs to Africans. OTIS Mental Ability Test, with American norms, often used to test whites in industry. Development of psychological assessment from 1960 onwards: Large number of assessments developed between 1960 and 1984. National institute for Personnel research developed measures for industry. Institute for Psychological and Edumetric Research developed measures for education and clinical practice. Both these institutes were incorporated into the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). Tests were developed along racial lines, little need for common tests as groups did not compete with each other. Few measures were developed for blacks, coloureds and Indians. During 80’s and 90’s the political climate began to change and Apartheid laws were repealed. Racial groups began competing directly for same jobs and the use of separate measures came under close scrutiny. Measures began to be developed for more than one racial group and norms were developed for the various racial groups. Examples: • General Scholastic Aptitude Test GSAT • Ability, Processing of Information and Learning Battery APIL-B • Paper and Pencil Games PPG, first assessment available in all 11 official languages. Little research was done to determine suitability of tests for a multicultural SA. Research was needed to determine the biases of tests. Owen in 1986 determined there was significant differences between results for races on various tests and stated that work was needed to reduce the differential differences between the various race groups. Taylor in 1987 recognised the responsibility of practitioners to reduce such biases. The misuse of tests and the Nationalist government using results to exclude certain races from jobs and educational opportunities, lead to a distrust of psychological measures with large portions of the psychological community rejecting testing altogether. In the 1970’s legislation was promulgated restricting the use of testing to psychological practitioners only. Psychological assessment in the democratic South Africa: Post 1994 there was a growing need to address past imbalances. Employment Equity Act and Professional practice guidelines implemented to ensure fair and unbiased testing and eliminate discriminatory practices. Outcome 1: 2 - Developments in the areas of cognitive assessment, personality assessment and behavioural assessment are critically analysed and applied in various work-related contexts. History of cognitive assessment: Historical development of the concept of intelligence: • Francis Galton o First real effort of measuring intelligence. o Tried to explain that intelligence or genius ran in certain families. o Believed intelligence was inherited and biologically determined. o Perception, attention, memory, language, problem solving, reasoning and other cognitive processes were dependant on the power of the nervous system. o Tried to link psycho-physiological processes such as reaction time, sensory discrimination, visual and hearing acuity to intelligence. o This approached was proved to be wrong. • James Mckeen Cattell o First North American proponent of testing. o Similar belief to Galton. o Sensory, perceptual and motor process were the fundamental elements of thought. o Coined the term mental test. • Alfred Binet o Set out to devise a means of identifying children with lower intelligence, who needed special education, which was more objective than teacher observation. o Intelligence was a high-level ability to which mental judgement was the key. o Intelligence assessed using relatively complex thought patterns usually displayed in everyday life and in the ability to learn within an academic setting. o Used a set of questions and developed age level norms in answering questions. Used this information to determine the “mental age” of a child. o Known as Simon-Binet tests. • Lewis Therman o Adapted Simon-Binet tests for use in America. o Became Stanford-Binet tests, and is one of the most widely used tests today. o Expressed level of performance in terms of intelligence quotient – IQ. • David Weschler o Developed Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) and Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIC). o Differentiated between two types of scholastic intelligence: verbal and performance, which were measured by different sub tests. o Introduced a statistical method for calculating IQ