The Applications of a Psychometric Approach in the Study of Personality Essay

Introduction

Intelligence is a word utilized to explain a belonging of the mind, which embraces several associated capabilities like the ability to plan, to make decision, to reason, to understand concepts, to study and to think conceptually. There are different manners of describing intelligence. For instance, some ways involve characters like perception, originality, acquaintance, personality or behaviour. People are different in their capability to comprehend thoughts, to adjust successfully to the surrounding, to study from past occurrence, to engage in different types of reasoning, to fight against hindrances by understanding ideas. Though substantial intelligibility has been attained in most of the places, there is no such formulation that has responded to all the significant queries and none instructions widespread consent (Hertzig, 1998, p.97). This paper will discuss the psychometric approach of studying personality and human intelligence.

Psychometric Approach

A common theory of intelligence is grounded on psychometric approach. Thus, psychometric approach is grounded on direct evaluation of imagination and its apparent associates like information, capabilities, personality behaviour, and thoughts in a person. However, discontentment with the convectional psychometric approach has resulted to the establishment of several other theories, which indicate that intelligence is due to several autonomous capabilities that distinctively lead to human performance. Though other intelligence theories have been developed, the theory with the biggest supporters for the longest time is grounded on psychometric approach.

Stanford-Binet and Wechsler scales testing

The two common psychometrically testing used mostly as measures of intelligence are the Stanford-Binet and Wechsler scales. Gardner argues that the intelligence testing assess only rational and lingual intelligences, with little emphasis within satisfaction in those fields. Therefore, according to Gardner, the recent approach of psychometric for assessing intelligence is not effective. According to him, evaluation ought to look into a larger area to assess the cognitive abilities in an accurate manner. In addition, he recommends several expansions for the improvement of intelligence evaluations. Moreover, Gardner believes that the aim of evaluation should be to get data on the knowledge and abilities of the people and offer significant response to the persons and the society as a whole. Evaluation brings out data about a person’s capabilities in the circumstance to real performance instead of alternative by utilization of official tools in a de-contextualized system. Gardner says that evaluation needs to be made one of the learning environments. This is because evaluation is created into the learning circumstance just like the persistent evaluation of knowledge that happens in position or the self-evaluation, which happens in professionals who have understood a performance criterion grounded on the earlier instructions of the instructors. In addition, extrapolative validity of convectional intelligence testing might be psychometrically approach, though its significance further than predicting institutional performance is doubtful. On the other hand, Sternberg says that the realistic understanding or approach is “psychometric nightmare”. Measuring performance of such kind of evaluation is hard, impartiality is doubtful, and custom unfairness is still a predicament. Difficult information is the scientific while psychometric approach is a requirement. Hence, Sternberg deals in approving this psychometric approach to measurement on the concept that we should basically be restoring one defective setting of evaluation with a testing, which is similarly as problematical (Gilman, 2001, p1r. 7-10).

Application of psychometric approach

Psychometric theory is used in the evaluation of attitudes, behaviour, academic attainment, health-associated areas and thinking. Evaluation of these unperceivable developments is hard, and a lot of the study and combined skill in this field has been established in an effort to appropriately describe and measure such developments. Critics, involving professionals in the social activists and physical sciences have discussed that such description and measurement is impossibly hard, and such evaluation are often mis-utilized like with psychometric personality testing utilized in employment processes. For instance, a manager or employer requiring an individual in a position that need persistent concentration to repetitive detail will most likely not want to offer that position to a person who gets uninterested quickly and is very imaginative. In addition, psychometric theory is used in educational measurement to assess capabilities in areas like arithmetic, writing and reading (Reese, 1978, pp. 55-59).

Similarly, psychometric approach assists in selection and recruitment procedures. It assists the employer to bring together considerable data about a candidate so that he or she can consider whether he or she is the best candidate for the specific position. Most of psychometric tools utilized in the procedures include aptitude tests and personality questionnaires. The aptitude tests are utilized to make sure that a minimum degree of capability in utilizing arithmetical and written data. These tests include arithmetical thinking, abstract thinking and verbal thinking or reasoning. On the other hand, personality questionnaires include occupational thinking or reasoning that are utilized to obtain a concept of ones fit in line with the responsibility, agency or group (Lubinski, 2004, pp. 97-98).

Conclusion

In conclusion, intelligence as evaluated through psychometric approach is mostly applied in business, learning settings and occupational settings because psychometric approach is efficient in determining the personality and human intelligence.

Reference list

Gilman, L., (2001). The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Human Intelligence. Web.

Hertzig, E., (1998). Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns. Annual Progress in Child Psychiatry and Child Development 1997.

Lubinski, D. (2004). Introduction to the special section on cognitive abilities: 100 years after Spearman’s (1904) “‘General Intelligence,’ objectively determined and measured””. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 86 (1): 96–111

Reese, T.W. (1978). The application of the theory of physical measurement to the measurement of psychological magnitudes, with three experimental examples. Psychological Monographs, 55, 1-89.