Crucial issues in the field of Psychological Assessment and Evaluation:
by Rocío Fernández-Ballesteros

Evaluation during the Next Decades

Psychological Assessment is one of the oldest fields of Psychology as well as it is one of themost extended applied fields. Therefore, challenges and developments for the future must bebuilt from its productive past.

First of all, several developments will take place as a logical continuation of the progressalready made concerning psychological assessment and measurements in the field of individualcharacteristics; in physiological and neuro-psychological assessment; and in person-situationinteraction assessment.

A second avenue for progresses that could be expected will be related with the interchangesbetween new technologies and cognitive sciences: computerized assisted assessment, andassessment through virtual reality.

Thirdly, psychological assessment and tests have a strong relationship to Society, therefore,new social needs will determine several challenges in our discipline: environmental andecological assessment; assessment of change and the quality of life; and, instrumentstranslation and adaptation.

Finally, some advances can be predicted in unsolved problems such as set response control.

A1. Psychological assessment of individual characteristic.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, from individual differences perspective, hundreds ofpersonality and intelligence measurements devices have been developed. In the last Edition ofBuro's Series, personality and intelligence tests represent more than 60% of the total testspublished in the USA (Kramer & Conoley, 1992). If we examine parallel works in othercountries such as Germany or Spain (Fernández-Ballesteros, 1994; Schorr, 1993) we will findsimilar data.

Concerning intelligence and aptitudes measurements, three sources of evolution could beexpected:

1) Advances of cognitive psychology will yield new techniques for the evaluation offirst-order mental process associated with simple as well as increasingly complex levels ofhuman cognitive functioning through laboratory devices.

2) The so-called dynamic assessment of intelligence will continue to be a source ofdevelopments, important when we need to plan and program cognitive interventions.

3) The development of the Item Response Theory (IRT) will allow the progress of bothcomputerized as well as adaptive intellectual tests.

Concerning personality assessment we can expect three lines of developments:

1) The improvement of paper-and-pencil tests on the measurement of personality traits. Aswe will see later on, these improvements will be passed by solving several biases inself-reports.

2) The developments of new tests linked to new personality and psycho-pathologicalconstructs in the field of health and adaptation (for example, prone types of personality, rationality , defensiveness ).

3) The construction of new adaptive tests not only in the field of achievement but also in themeasurement of attitudes and personality characteristics.

A2. Progress in psycho-physiological and neuro-psychological assessment.

Advances in physiological technology have had an enormous influence on psychologicalassessment in the last decades. The application of instrumentation, specially to the study ofemotion, but also to personality and intelligence, has been undertaken relatively recently. andwill allow us to improve our predictions at least in laboratory settings.

Professor Matarazzo (1992) recently has presented physiological measures of intelligence asone of the most important future developments of psychological assessment able to predict...success in school, as well as occupational attainment and other aspects of everyday living(p. 1012).

In spite of the fact that bio-physiological measurement and assessment is, nowadays, extremelyuseful in basic psychological research and in the diagnosis and rehabilitation of individualcases, the predictive power of any of these biological indices in school achievement oroccupational success or other progress in everyday life is not yet supported and it seemsdifficult that this will be reached. My expectation is that without taking into accountenvironmental as well as motivational factors we will never be able to predict thosemultidimensional and molar behaviors.

Also, as a result of the development of the basic research of brain-behavior relationships,helped by technological developments (such as computerized axial topography (CAT),regional Cerebral-Blood-Flow (rCBF), etc.) as well as looking for solving applied needs,neuro-psychology has been an important field of assessment. Improvement is still needed inthe norms, criteria, and qualitative appraisal that will allow the assessor to establish moreaccurate diagnoses, prognoses, and rehabilitation programs designs.

A3. Person-environment interactions

As early as the thirties, it was emphasized by Lewin (1935), among others, that theenvironment is important in the prediction of human behavior (R = f(P x S)).

In spite of the fact that interactional psychology works more through statistical designs,several assessment devices were developed to measure the subject in his or her context (bothobjectively or subjectively) in clinical, educational, and work settings (Wachs & Plomin,1991). It can be said that new measurement devices will be provided in order to assessperson-situation interactions.

In the interchange of the science of cybernetic and cognitive and physiological sciences twomain sources of progress can be predicted: computer assisted assessment and assessmentthrough virtual reality.

B1. Computer assisted assessment

Advances in the technology for administering and interpreting computerized versions of thealready existing tests and other psychological instruments will be a common practice onassessment during the next decades.

Also, a new generation of tests based on Item Response Theory together with artificialintelligence, computer modeling and other computer assisted strategies will produceimprovements on theory and technology, as well as in assessment practice.

Moreover, we can expect important progresses on the assessment of the assessment process. As is well known, psychological assessment is set up by means of a process. Rationalappraisal, statistics versus clinical predictions, artificial intelligence, expert systems have beenused in order both for studying the episthemic activity of the psychological assessor and forstudying systematically the assessment process as a standard procedure.

Knowledge based expert systems and artificial intelligence served for testing the assessmentprocess (Westmeyer & Hagebock, 1992; Adarrage & Zacagnini, 1992).

In the next decades, without doubt, new progresses and developments in this vital issue forpsychological assessment and for the science of psychology can be expected.

B2. Virtual Reality - A new tool for psychological assessment

One of the most fascinating and promising fields for assessment is Virtual Reality. VirtualReality can be defined as a computer-generated simulation of the three-dimensionalenvironment in which the user is able to both deal and manipulate the content of thatenvironment involving his/her five senses (Stampe, Roehl & Eagan, 1993; p.9) that implies notonly a revolution in the presentation of visual stimuli but also in other sensorial conditionssuch as verbal-auditive, touch, balance or smell.

Would it be possible to test in virtual reality? Without doubt yes. Spatial orientation,learning, interpersonal interaction, as well as other targets for assessment could be tested bymeans of virtual situational tests. It could even be possible to reach one of the frontiers for thecommunication in testing established by Jacob Levy Moreno since, as was pointed out byQuéau (1993), it will be possible to see others through their own eyes and to be seen by othersthrough our own eyes. This would present an engaging opportunity in order to investigate therelationship between assessor/examinee as well as to explore social interactions andtransaction between subjects.

Psychological assessment is a research as well as an applied field. Across this century,socio-political and ideological issues have had an important influence on psychologicalassessment (remember! tests were outlawed in the Soviet Union, and in other developedcountries many other legal decisions have been taken against and in favor of psychologicalmeasurements devices). At the end of the 20th century, we can state that we are living in aplanetary world, and during the next decades, this tendency will increase (perhaps, just aroundthe corner, we will be in an intergalactic world).

C1. Environmental and ecological assessment

During the sixties and seventies, a stronger environmental and ecological position has beenadopted in psychology. From this perspective several psycho-environmental models arose(Moos, 1973; Cone & Hayes, 1980).

These models, which have grown up closely related with other social and natural disciplines,have been called by social agents and social policies in order to solve environmental problems. That is, science, technology and social needs are interacting once more in order to solveproblems.

Psychological assessment, along with other disciplines, is also helping in the important task todescribe, predict, and evaluate human environments.

Psychological assessors have two basic concerns. First, the development of useful and validtechnology for basic and applied research, from pre-school classrooms to nursing homefacilities. Secondly, there is a mainly applied concern with proceeding into the description,prediction and change of specific environments, in order to adjust the environment to subjects,as well as to preserve natural environments through more ecological behaviors.

Since it is clear that environmental problems require behavioral solutions, it can be predictedthat environmental assessment will be developed in the next decades.

C2. The assessment of behavioral change

During the last years, room has been made for a new applied field of psychological assessmentand measurement that concerns program and/or training evaluation. When social, communityprograms or educational and clinical treatments have behavioral goals, psychological devicesare needed in order to assess behavioral change. For example, any program for drug-addicts,rehabilitation, mental health, and so forth, have behavioral goals: stop drug consumption,psychological adaptation, work improvement, etc.

Therefore it would be necessary to develop measurement devices in order to assess change(See, for example, Beuers et al., 1993).

One important program is that of Quality of Life (QL). In the most developed countries,quality of life is the ultimate goal for health, educational, and social programs. In addition, theincrease of health-care costs of several medical treatments require the measurement of theiroutcomes on health status at physical as well as social and psychological levels.

Since more effective health, social, and community programs will be implemented andassessed, it can be predicted that in then next decades new conceptualizations andmeasurement devices containing bio-psycho-social-ecological aspects (both subjectively andobjectively) will be developed.

C3. Instruments translation/adaptation

At the end of the 20th Century we are living in a planetary or earth world; more and more,psychologists will develop their work in different languages and cultures. This fact demandstandards for test adaptation and for tests construction for cross-cultural research andpractice. and more efforts will be made in this direction.

But not only the developments I expect in the next decades arose from past developments ofnew social needs, some of my expectations and hopes are related to pending assessmentproblems; that is, questions that psychological assessors have not solved yet although theytried to. As a sample of these unsolved problems, let me finish this list of future developmentsof psychological assessment speaking about our need of control of set responses onself-reports.

D1. Set response control

Since the twenties psychologists are aware of several psychological test bias. During thiscentury psychologists have been working on the definition, measurement and control of bias inself-report measures, such asocial desirability, deception and self-deception, faking good andfaking bad, simulation, lying, malingering, defensiveness, honesty, denying, repressive copingstyle, inflated self-descriptions. Several authors assume they are self-report biases, otherssuppose they are personality characteristics or the expression of a defense style (Shedler,Mayman & Manis, 1993); meanwhile, public as well as private social agents are interested intheir assessment as expression of integrity or honesty.

Many of the most extended questionnaires have tried to control these sources of error, andnowadays new scales have been developed with this purpose (Bagby, Rogers & Buis, 1994). Even, if from a technological point of view, self-reports as well as over behavior andphysiological devices have been used in order to control or/and assess some of theseconstructs, we can state that we have not reached our goal: subjects are able to lie and wecannot totally control that. We can state as Alice in Wonderland: ...we have gone veryquickly in order to be in the same place.

I hope in the next century we will be able to define in a proper manner the different conceptsengaged, at least, in the accuracy of self-reports.

Until here I have presented nine avenues of predicting progresses in psychological assessment. But, believe me, if my feeling that other developments, perhaps more important, areunpredictable, they will raise just as the result of the dialectic process of phylogenesis. If welook at the first International Congress of Applied Psychology in 1919, would it have beenpossible to anticipate the developments occurred during this century?

Outside of science-fiction, could it be possible to predict the tremendous conceptual andtechnological advances occurred in Psychological Assessment until now? If it is true thatseveral developments can be predicted, others will emerge because of the very nature of lifeand the cumulative character of science. Maybe new methods of research can complement thepresent ones, opening new avenues of advancement in Psychological Assessment.

Adarrage, P. & Zacagnini, J.L. (1992). DAIA Knowledge-Based System for DiagnosingAutism. A Case Study on the Application of Artificial Intelligence to Psychology. EuropeanJournal of Psychological Assessment, 8, 17-25.

Bagby, R.M., Rogers, R. & Buis, T. (1994). Detecting Malingering and DefensiveResponding on the MMPI-2 in a Forensic Inpatient Sample. Journal of PersonalityAssessment, 62, 191-201.

Beurs, E., Lange, A., Blonk, R.W.B., Koele, P., van Balkom, A.J.L.M. & van Dick, R.(1993). Goal Attainment Scaling: An Idiosyncratic Method to Assess Treatment Effectivenessin Agoraphobia. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 15, 357-375.

Cone, J.D. & Hayes (1980). Environmental Problems Behavioral Solutions. California: Cole.

Fernández-Ballesteros, R. (1992). Anatomia de los autoinformes. Evaluation Psicológica/Psychological Assessment, 8, 3-26.

Fernández-Ballesteros, R. (1994). Psychological Assessment. Applied Psychology: AnInternational Review, 43, 157-175.

Hambleton, R. et al. (1994). Standards for Adapting Tests. International Test Commission.

Kramer, J.J. & Conoley, J.C. (1992). The Eleventh Mental Measurement Yearbook. TheBuros Institute.

Matarazzo, J.D. (1992). Psychological Testing and Assessment in the 21st Century. American Psychologists, 47, 1007-1018.

Moos, R. (1973). Conceptualization of Human Environments. American Psychologists, 28,652-665.

Quéau, P. (1993). Vertus and Vertiges. Champ Vallon/INA.

Schedler, J., Mayman, M. & Manis, M. (1993). The Illusion of Mental Health. AmericanPsychologists, 1117-1128.

Schorr, A. (1993). Projective Testing in behavior Therapy. European Journal ofPsychological Assessment, 3, 213-221.

Stampe, D., Roehl, B. & Eagan, J. (1993). In p. 9: Virtual Reality Creations. Corte Madera CA: White Group Press.

Wachs, T.D. & Plomin, R. (Eds) (1991). Conceptualization and Measurement of Organism-Environment Interaction. Washington DC: American Psychological Association.

Westmeyer, H. & Bagebock, J. (1992). Computer-Assisted Assessment: A Normative Perspective. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 8, 1-17.

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