Psychometrics: Definition, Meaning, Tests, Use, & More!

Psychometrics is a crucial branch of psychology that concerns itself with assessment and quantification, turning somewhat vague psychological concepts into objective and measurable data.

However, although it permeates nearly all aspects of psychology, psychometrics isn’t a well-known term among the general public. Therefore, we’ve asked our experts to clarify it and show us what psychometrics entails and where we can encounter it in everyday life.

This is what they’ve revealed to us.

Key Takeaways

• In psychology, psychometrics means measuring and quantifying mental processes, personality traits, behaviors, skills, and aptitudes.
• Examples of psychometrics include psychometric tests, more specifically, cognitive tests, personality tests, and aptitude tests.
• A psychometrician, a person with psychometric knowledge, uses observation, projective techniques, and personality inventories to gather relevant data.
• Psychometrics can be used for academic placement, job orientation, recruitment, research, and therapy.

What Is Psychometrics?

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Psychometrics is a field of psychology that focuses on quantifying mental processes, skills, behaviors, and personality traits using scientific methods and objective criteria. As a result, psychometricians work on developing scales, tools, and instruments for measuring psychological concepts.

The origins of psychometrics can be traced back to the late 19th century, when British anthropologist Francis Galton, inspired by Darwin’s exploration of the differences between plant and animal species, decided to examine human beings using a similar approach.

Although Galton’s 1869 book Hereditary Genius is known chiefly for its eugenic ideology, it also contains some of the very first attempts to measure individual differences in personality and intelligence.

As a result, Francis Galton became known as the father of psychometrics and the scientist who inspired James McKeen Cattell to develop a series of mental tests—predecessors to the actual IQ tests.

Recent History

After that, psychometrics kept rapidly developing in the 20th century. At the very beginning, there was Alfred Binet and the first-ever intelligence test, followed by many other versions in the coming decades.

Then, there were personality tests, starting with the Woodworth Personal Data Sheet, designed to screen military recruits, and culminating in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator—still widely used today.

Nowadays, psychometrics is a highly developed branch of psychology, constantly improving its methods and striving for objectivity and accuracy.

What Is Not Psychometrics?

Testing in school, such as exams after a specific unit or at the end of a semester, isn’t considered psychometrics. This kind of testing specifically targets the knowledge acquired in a course, and students are encouraged to study and prepare for it.

On the other hand, psychometric testing aims to evaluate your innate abilities, traits, and skills, as well as compare them to the population average. As a result, you’re not expected to practice or learn anything in advance, nor are there any specific pass/fail criteria.

What Can Be Assessed in a Psychometric Test?

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A psychometric test can be used to assess intelligence, personality traits, soft skills, aptitude, attitudes, and behaviors. In other words, most psychological concepts can be measured using psychometric methods and instruments.

Considering the range of tests covered by psychometrics, its methods can vary significantly.

Most commonly, psychometricians use professionally designed tests with either multiple-choice or open-ended questions. Some of them, like IQ tests, have a correct answer, while others, like personality tests, don’t. Instead, they are interested in the test taker’s thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors.

In both cases, experts use statistics and mathematical analysis to determine where each test taker is on a specific scale or which personality group they belong to. What sets professional psychometric tests apart from other kinds is that their results are highly consistent, reliable, and valid.

3 Types of Psychometric Tests

The most common examples of psychometric testing are cognitive tests, personality tests, and aptitude tests, all of which are frequently used in academic and professional settings to determine how suitable someone is for a job position or school placement.

Let’s explore each type in more detail.

#1. Cognitive Tests

Cognitive tests encompass a variety of assessment tools that measure the degree of cognitive development and quantify intelligence. Although there are numerous tests of this kind, the most well-known type is, undoubtedly, IQ tests.

IQ tests measure aspects of cognition such as pattern recognition, logical reasoning, memorizing, and processing to arrive at a single score that represents the overall intelligence. This score, otherwise known as the intelligence quotient, is the result you get when you complete an IQ test.

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#2. Personality Tests

Personality tests are designed to measure traits, behaviors, interests, motivations, interactions with others, and numerous other aspects that make up one’s personality. Most frequently, they use self-assessment methods to gather data from participants.

The most popular personality test is the 16 Personalities test, which measures four aspects of personality: introversion/extroversion, sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving. As a result, each test taker can be placed in one of the 16 available categories.

Aside from the 16 Personalities test, other widely used personality tests are the Big 5 Personality Test, Enneagram, and DISC assessment. Though they measure slightly different aspects of personality and use different approaches, their overall method is similar.

#3. Aptitude Tests

Aptitude tests are often used to assess job candidates or help students decide which career to pursue in the future. Namely, they measure the test taker’s capacity and potential to develop certain skills necessary in a particular field.

For example, a student who shows a particular affinity for languages and scores high on the psychometric verbal ability scale could be advised to pursue a career in writing, journalism, teaching, or translating.

It’s important to differentiate aptitude tests from achievement tests, though. Whereas aptitude tests measure someone’s potential for success in a particular field, achievement tests assess acquired knowledge or skills.

Psychometric Test Methods

Psychometric test methods usually include observation, projective techniques, and personality inventories.

Below, we explore what each of these methods entails in more detail.

#1. Observation

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The observation method is commonly used as an objective way to determine how the participants behave in a particular situation. Usually, it involves a researcher who observes and takes notes on the subjects’ behaviors either in a natural or controlled environment.

The following are three types of observation methods:

• Controlled. The researcher controls the environment and the number of participants, as well as the time and place of observation. Although this is useful for arranging specific conditions that might not occur naturally, it can lead to unnatural behavior and unreliable results.
• Naturalistic. The researcher observes the participants’ behavior in their natural environment without interference. These observations tend to be more accurate, but it can be more difficult to gather the necessary results.
• Participant. The researcher joins the group they are observing, either disguised or undisguised, and immerses themselves in the participants’ experience. This method is often used in anthropological research, but it may lead to decreased objectivity or affect the participants’ behavior.

#2. Projective Techniques

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Projective techniques require the participant to interpret symbols, vague scenes, and pictures and describe what they think they see. Then, the researcher performs an assessment based on their interpretation.

The most well-known example of a projective psychometric method is the Rorschach inkblot test, often featured in popular media. As a rule, the patient is asked to describe what they see on ten inkblots, which are traditionally either black and white or contain patches of color.

This test, first developed in 1921, gained popularity in the 1960s when it was used to measure aspects of personality and cognition as well as diagnose mental disorders. However, since the criteria for interpreting results are very vague, it’s not considered a particularly reliable method.

#3. Personality Inventories

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Finally, personality inventories are most commonly used in psychometrics nowadays, as they have specific criteria and the collected data is easy to quantify.

Typical personality inventories come in the form of a standardized questionnaire, which asks you to assess your own traits and rank them on a scale.

For example, if there’s a statement such as “I usually stay calm under pressure,” you are supposed to decide whether and to what degree you agree with it.

Aside from self-assessment tests, whose accuracy depends on the test taker’s self-awareness, there are tests that ask the observer to assess the participant and rank their traits. These may be somewhat more objective, although they, too, are susceptible to personal bias.

Where Can Psychometrics Be Used?

Psychometrics can be used for various purposes in everyday life, be they related to academics, recruitment, research, or psychological evaluation.

More specifically, here is what psychometrics can be useful for:

• Job orientations. Aptitude and personality tests can help students decide which career to pursue in the future, as they show where their talents, skills, and interests lie.
• Academic placement. IQ tests are frequently used in schools or institutions of higher education to determine whether the test taker meets the joining requirements.
• Recruitment process. Similarly, IQ tests can help employers decide whether a certain candidate would be a good fit for their company. In this case, IQ tests are often used along with personality tests.
• Research. Psychometric data is useful for research in social psychology—namely, it provides material for developing theories and testing hypotheses.
• Therapy. Psychologists often use various personality tests to gain a deeper insight into their patients, understand their behaviors, and devise better strategies to help them.

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Final Thoughts

Although measuring psychological concepts is a difficult feat, we’ve come a long way since psychometrics first started. Psychometricians nowadays have a deeper understanding of psychological processes and develop increasingly better tools for measuring them and eliminating potential bias.

In other words, when you take an aptitude or IQ test, the odds are that the results will accurately represent your affinities and cognitive abilities. It’s not just guesswork and approximations—there’s a whole science behind these tests.