Psychometric Testing (Psychological Assessment) is when a trained psychologist uses the strategies and tools of psychology to learn general or specific facts about people, either to let others know how they function or to foresee their behaviour and functioning in the future.

• Learn how Psychological Assessments are carried out.
• Professional Development Course for anyone working in Psychology, Counselling or Management
• Self paced study, 100 hour course, Personal tuition from professional psychologists

Course Aims:

• Explain the main kinds of psychological tests and why they are used, and meaning of test reliability and validity
• Explain ethical and other factors that constrain clinical assessment
• Describe a structured and an unstructured interview
• Explain behavioural assessment and how it can be conducted
• Discuss Wechsler scales in detail
• Explain the purpose and use of the Wechsler Memory Test
• Explain the purpose and usage of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

Detailed Course Outline

This course is made up of a number of lessons or units. Each of these has self assessment questions, a set task (practical homework) and an assignment which you can upload online.

There are 7 lessons in this course:

1. Introduction

• • What is psychological assessment
  • Types of psychological tests
  • Achievement tests
  • Aptitude tests
  • Intelligence tests
  • Occupational tests
  • Personality tests
  • History of psychological testing
  • Justification for using tests
  • Advantages and disadvantages of using psychometric testing
  • Ethnicity and different cultures
  • Psychological testing of language minority and culturally different children
  • Why your child should be tested
  • Why it is important for parents to know about testing
  • Validity and reliability
  • Construct, discriminant and convergent validity
  • Test retest reliability

2.  Context of Clinical Assessment

• • Ethical practice
  • Confidentiality
  • Case study: confidentiality
  • Informed consent
  • Record keeping
  • Dual relationships
  • Professional boundaries
  • Selecting tests
  • Case study: ethics and lie detection
  • Computer assisted assessment
  • Virtual reality; new tool for psychological assessment
  • Personality traits and designing a questionnaire
  • Weaknesses
  • Ambiguity and bias
  • Closed and open questions

3. The Assessment Interview

• • The interview
  • Screening for psychological disorders
  • Structured and unstructured interviews
  • SCID
  • Assessing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among veterans
  • Screening and referral procedure overview
  • If patient refuses referral to mental health care
  • Use of a primary care screen
  • Discussing screening results with patients
  • Discern if traumatic events are ongoing
  • Making a recommendation
  • Scheduling a follow up
  • Psychometric properties of SCID

4. Behavioural Assessment

• • Behaviourism
  • Kinds of consequences
  • Reinforcers
  • Intrinsic and extrinsic reinforcers
  • Consequences and timing
  • The premack principle
  • Extinction
  • Criticisms of behaviourism
  • Methods of behavioural assessment
  • The focus of assessment
  • Functional analysis
  • Analysis of problem behaviour
  • Motivational analysis
  • Behavioural vs traditional assessment

5. Wechsler Intelligence Scales

• • Introduction
  • Measuring intelligence
  • Cognitive, cognitive contextual and biological theories
  • Psychometric theories
  • Wechsler Intelligence scales
  • Normal results
  • Sub tests, verbal subtests, performance subtests
  • Cultural bias
  • Precautions with intelligence testing
  • The intelligence test as a tool

6. Wechsler Memory scales

• • Memory
  • Wechsler Memory test
  • Wechsler Memory Scale III

7. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

• • Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) Assessment
  • Problems
  • False negatives; false positives

When you have completed the lessons of your psychometric testing course, you will be given the option of taking the optional exam. It’s okay if you don’t want the exam, we still issue your Careerline Certificate. For Advanced Certificates however, the exam is compulsory (per module) and are included in the course fee.