The Principles and Practice of Psychological Assessment

Assessment is an important part of any psychologist's role and the outcome can have consequences, positive and negative, for the person being assessed. Principles and practices of psychological assessment is a guide to drawing up, administering and interpreting assessment procedures, and judging whether the techniques used are theoretically and procedurally sound. It also takes a special look at assessment from an organisational perspective, because although many of the technical and scientific issues with respect to psychological assessment are common to all areas of applied psychology, there are numerous issues and applications that are unique to the organisational context. Principles and practices of psychological assessment is more of a "how to" than a critical text, but includes some background information and in-depth theorising for more problematic issues. A glossary of terms and a unique cognitive map of psychological tests are provided. Contents include the following: Properties of a good measuring technique; ways of categorising the observation process; techniques used in measurement; errors inherent in the assessment process; fairness, bias and discrimination; combining and interpreting results; designing and locating appropriate assessment centre exercises.