paper-and-pencil tests

n. Paper-and-pencil tests in psychology are sometimes referred to as questionnaires, inventories, surveys, rating scales, or checklists. They are designed so that a person taking the test (respondent) is required to answer (endorse) one or more questions (items) on a paper form. Paper-and-pencil tests in psychology are used to measure, among other things, personality traits, vocational interests, educational achievement, mental disorders, job performance, and intellectual aptitudes. Such tests can easily be adapted for computerized administration, whereby the items are displayed and endorsed at a computer terminal.

The items in a paper-and-pencil test might be questions that, for example, ask the respondent to solve certain logic problems, describe some typical day-to-day behaviors, identify any symptoms of pathology, or indicate his or her preferences for different work activities. The response to each item can take the form of an open-ended written answer, a true-false response, a check mark beside one of several response alternatives, a circle on a 10-point rating scale, and so on.

Paper-and-pencil tests in psychology generally have multiple items measuring an attribute or construct. The items are considered to be parallel measures of the construct, so their endorsements can be summed to get a total score for the respondent. For example, a paper-and-pencil measure of quantitative ability might contain 50 arithmetic problems (e.g., 9 x 7 = ___ ). A respondent's total quantitative ability score would be tallied as the number of correct answers out of 50. A measure of depression might present a list of 20 depressive symptoms (e.g., “I cry on most days”). A respondent's total depression score would be the number of symptoms checked out of 20.

A raw count of the number of items endorsed on a psychological test usually has little meaning in and of itself. It must be compared with the scores of other people on the test. Raw test scores, therefore, are typically reported in relation to the scores of a norm group, which can be defined as a large sample of respondents representative of the population for whom the test was designed.

Paper-and-pencil tests are to be contrasted with other forms of assessment in psychology. These include psychological interviews, direct behavior sampling, expert ratings, and physiological measures. – SVP

▶ See also PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT