History of Psychological Assessment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

History of Psychological Assessment - show ExampleHowever, certain quarters harbored a dissenting view and maintained that knowledge was a glacial property, the implication lending credence to the notion that a nation with superior intelligence could be separate and developed with specific interrogatory techniques.Robert Yerkes was one of those convinced that with intelligence being a measurable constant, intelligence tests could be executed and quantified like an exact science. It is to be recalled that during this period psychology was considered to be a classic pseudoscience, and Yerkes was determined to find a way in which he could bring credibility to his craft. He wanted to have psychology recognized as hard science and believed that using a scientific approach to mental testing looked like a promising route to achieve this. (Gould, 1982) He was under the impression that rigorous, statistic-based tests would uplift the boilers suit image of psychology within the scienti fic community.The advent of the First World War gave him the perfect luck to showcase the hard techniques of mental testing, and thus present to everyone that psychology was indeed a creditable science. In 1917, Yerkes was the president of the American Psychology Association, and under their auspices he spearheaded what was to become one of the biggest intelligence tests in history. Faced with the daunting task of gauging the capabilities of to a greater extent than 1.75 million new recruits, the United States Army handed over the reins to Yerkes and his team from the APA. He devised three types of tests for the recruits. The first was an alpha test, which was a written exam for those who were literate. According to Sticht & Armstrong (2003), it had ogdoad parts, including analogies, filling in the missing number, and unscrambling a sentence. The beta test was a seven-part pictorial test for those who were illiterate. analyse components included a picture completion test, and num bering tasks among others. The third test was an individual examination, and this was administered to those who had failed the beta It is tending(p) to note that the Alpha and Beta tests could be applicable to big groups, and in most cases took no more than an hour. In analyzing his findings, Yerkes insisted that the tests administered were an accurate barometer of what he had termed native intellectual ability, or innate intelligence that was immune by culture and educational opportunities (Gould, 1982) The tests would go on to generate a significant amount of sake in the country, and with that Yerkes had achieved his long-standing goal of making psychology a credible, hard science. In retrospect, the beta and alpha tests promulgate by Yerkes were in herently flawed in so many aspects. Its findings reflected that the number mental age of a white American adult was 13, which if equated in contemporary terms would make them the equivalent of a semi-retarded person. The average me ntal age of a black American adult was 10, and the scores of immigrants were comparably low. The hypothesis here being, the darker the skin of the person, the less intelligent he would be.These findings and the methodologies implemented are now found to be some(prenominal) ethically and scientifically wanting. While it had been