Psychometrics: The Science of Measuring the Human Mind

- Shruti Chadha

In light of the ongoing battle for talent and the acquisition of a skilled and fit for purpose workforce, an increasing number of organizations are turning to psychometrics for decisions affecting their recruitment and talent development. The attraction is clear, and the promise of identifying, measuring, defining, describing and forecasting behaviour, aptitude, interest and personality can at times be a strong temptation for organizations to reach out to psychometrics.

Test development professionals have been using the Item Response theory(IRT) methods to provide the mathematical foundation for most of today's sophisticated and structured assessments. IRT models relate the properties of test items (e.g., difficulty/ extremity) and examinee trait levels across knowledge, skill, ability and interests(e.g., math, verbal, and spatial abilities, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and motivation) to the probability of correctly answering or endorsing items. For practical reasons, most large-scale tests have been constructed, scored, and/or evaluated using one-dimensional IRT models, which assume that an item responding is a function of just one ability or dimension. To obtain a profile of scores representing an examinee's proficiency in several areas, a sequence of one-dimensional tests is typically administered, with each being sufficiently long to achieve an acceptable level of reliability.

The use of technology in assessment, in contrast with the deep and long-standing tradition of self report measures and ratings from peers and supervisors, has taken human analytics to the scientific level of evaluation that it needs to be in. Tests enabling immersive and realistic simulations and serious gaming provide opportunities for examinees to demonstrate knowledge, emotions, and behaviors as it is expressed within realistic scenarios.

Psychometric tests have been used for a variety of purposes. Some of them are: