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Educational Measurement and Evaluation

Notes the norms of the intelligence tests have been based. Generally, the former are less representative
of the population and are dependent, of course, upon the quality of the schools in which the
standardization process was carried out.
A third defect is the fact that many achievement tests do not differentiate as well among pupils
as does a sound test of general intelligence. This fact tends to reduce the variability of the former
and its correlation with the latter.
Currently, for the purpose of indicating a pupil’s school achievement, the EA and EQ have value;
but they should be supplemented by each individual’s percentile rank within the distribution of
scores for his grade. Since all sound tests cover a range of several grades, it is possible, if
necessary, to compare any individual’s score with the norms in grades above or below his own,
for the purpose of finding his percentile rank within those, other levels.

13.3 Quantitative Interpretation of Test Scores

Psychological tests are standardized on the basis of the performance of a representative
population; and an individual’s rating is determined by the relationship of his performance to
that of a group as a whole. Thus we have the several “ages” (for example, mental age) and
“quotients” (for example, intelligence quotient), percentile and decile ranks, and standard scores.
Any useful test should yield one or more of these. In more recent years, however, without
denying the usefulness and value of these indexes of relative status, increasing emphasis has
been placed upon “patterns” of performance as clinical aids to psychological diagnosis and
counseling.
A person’s responses to tests are now frequently analyzed for the purpose of discovering whether
he shows any special abilities or disabilities, whether there are marked discrepancies between
responses on some types of materials as against responses on others, or whether certain
psychological processes seem to be impaired or are markedly superior to others within the
individual. A general contrast, for example, might be found between tests involving verbal
materials and those which are nonverbal in character; the associative processes might be disturbed;
memory or spatial perception might be found to deviate markedly in one direction or another
from an individual’s general level of capacity. Recent investigations have indicated that patterns
of response may be useful in differentiating and diagnosing the several categories of maladjusted
and abnormal personalities, as well as for discerning more clearly the mental defectives.
Also, it has been found that persons of equivalent general mental status may have different
patterns of performance, or abilities, which in sum, nevertheless, give them much the same over-
all and general ratings in terms of a single index (mental age, percentile rank). That is to say, it
is possible for two persons to have test ratings that are numerically similar and yet have dissimilar
“mental organizations,” since the components of each total rating differ to a greater or lesser
degree from those of the other.
If, therefore, the psychologist’s concern is not primarily with group trends or averages, but
rather with a particular individual, of course he will want to know the age level of performance
and the consequent quotient; but he will also analyze the details of the individual’s performance
for the purpose of discovering that person’s particular pattern or idiom, in order to discern his
particular form of mental organization, specific evidences of retardation or disability, if any, and
details of his development.
In more recent years there has been a partial shift in emphasis from almost exclusive concern
with the analysis of abilities and methods of psychological measurement, as such, to an examination
of individual performance and individual idiom, and to the individual as a functioning and
dynamic unit. After all, any given test measures only a segment of a total personality; that
segment is an integral part of the totality and is influenced by the whole. Hence, the psychologist
who is concerned with insight into the nature of an individual’s abilities must be able to evaluate

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