Testing and Assessment

I left this page as-is (from earlier versions) and just deleted links that failed a link check in 2017.

This page contains separate sections of links for:

information about testing and assessment
online tests
test publishers

Information about testing and assessment

American Board of Mental Health Diagnostics "The American Board of Mental Health Diagnostics ABMHD is in the process of being formed by a group of professionals who feel strongly about the need for a diagnostics specialty within psychiatry and mental health."
AssessmentPsychology.com "Information resources for mental health practitioners and consumers"

Online tests

These free tests are range from self-diagnostic psychiatric screening tests to academic research projects gathering data online. Other tests are enticements to pay for further services (books or web site memberships) and some are labeled "for entertainment only." Listed below are the free online tests I consider the best (or, in a few cases, most revealing of common problems in test construction). Each includes feedback about how to interpret results. No personal data is recorded by these sites unless otherwise indicated.

Alienation Test By C. George Boeree. 30-item test measures a person's sense of meaninglessness and estrangement from work and society.
Anxiety: The Computer Anxiety Scale: Cohen & Waugh This is a good example of a test which is very "transparent"...the items are so very straightforward that one could probably ask a person "Do computers make you anxious?" and get an equally valid result.
Anxiety: State Anxiety Inventory by Spielberger A test used in much research by Spielberger, an ex-president of the APA, and others. Like the previous few, it is transparent, but it is aimed at assessing a person's current state, not a lasting trait, therefore ostensibly it is more useful for before-and-after comparisons in therapy research.
Attachment Style Questionnaire "Experiences in Close Relationships" questionnaire diagnoses your attachment style. After completing the test you get a good discussion of its implications with links for finding out more. They collect some personal data like age, marital status, ethnicity and nationality, so this data might be used in research, but they do not ask for names or other detailed identifying data.
Homophobia Scale from PBS This is a test for irrational hatred of homosexuals. It has been used in research and is accompanied by a discussion of the issue.
IQ Test Lab This 15 minute multiple-choice test can only be taken once from a particular computer, requires personal information, and uses a password to give your results.
Locus of Control: Rotter This is based on classic work, but I am including it here mostly as a negative example. The test requires forced choice decisions when the truth might be "in between." (For example, are bad grades deserved, or are tests unfair? The most accurate answer would be, "It depends on the situation.") Most free online tests have not been subjected to validity testing which can justify test design by showing the results match well with independent ways of measuring the same thing. Absent such evidence, a better way to capture people's true opinions is to use Likert scales (multi-point rating scales, e.g. asking for ratings on a 5- or 7-point scale) because one can take the middle position as a compromise between opposites.
Morality Test "...Assesses your moral attitudes, particularly as they relate to your religious and cultural background. By 'moral' we mean those aspects of thought and behavior that relate to commonly accepted notions of right and wrong, and to selfish and unselfish actions." Appears aimed at determining whether conventional religiosity correlates with moral positions as defined by the test-maker.
Personality: IPIP-NEO (International Personality Item Pool) (Big Five) This site offers both the original (40-60 min) and shortened (15-25 min) versions of a test aimed at profiling your personality using the big five personality traits. Adapted from Goldberg's IPIP by John A. Johnson, PhD. Compare the results to Revelle's test for your own validity check.
Personality: Kiersey Temperament Sorter Based on Jungian personality typology; requires registration, e-mail address for password to take test
Personality: Sheldon's Body Types A test based on the 1940ish theory by Sheldon relating body type to three personality types: viscerotonia, somatotonia, and cerebrotonia. By C. George Boeree. This is just for fun; Sheldon's theory is no longer taken seriously.
Personality Type A/B: Jenkins A "modified version of the Jenkins Activity Survey" from 1971. Find out whether you would be rated a Type A or Type B personality, or somewhere in between. Alas, they do not tell you the original type A/B construct fell apart when later research failed to replicate the original findings linking Type A to heart attacks. (Cynicism proved more predictive than time-urgency or activity level.) Therefore this test, while fun, illustrates the dangers of reification...treating a psychological construct as concrete and real, just because you can construct a test to measure it, when the "thing" being measured may not even exist as a meaningful psychological trait.
PersonalityQuiz.net "Gain insight into your personality the fun way! A variety of short personality tests that attempt to analyze your personality by interpreting your reactions to various events."

These sites have large collections of online tests and questionnaires.

3smartcubes Huge collection of tests, some for pay only, others free after registration
Barbarian's Online Test Page
Online Psychological and Personality Tests
Personality Online: The Tests
YourPersonality.net

Test Publishers

These sites sell tests and online testing services to clinicians, businesses, and researchers. Some also offer free online tests.

3SmartCubes "IQ Tests & Personality Tests - quick, fun, accurate!"
OutOfService.com Fun-sounding tests like "Are you a freak" and the "twin" test (find out the similarity between your personality and somebody else's). The author says, "The tests are derived from scientific psychological research and the feedback provided to participants is based on statistical analyses of large amounts of data, unlike many other 'tests' on the web."
PsychTests.com "...The pioneer and leader in online testing, has developed hundreds of psychological assessments and innovative applications for individual and business purposes" This site is owned by Queendom.com (next link) and the web pages are very similar.
Queendom.com "Queendom offers the largest online battery of professionally developed and validated psychological assessments. A pioneer and leader in online testing, Queendom has served more than 250 million tests in nine different languages."
Testing Materials Resource Book Online: A division of M.D. Angus & Associates Ltd. "A site devoted to Commercially published standardized tests for all manner of purposes. Tests from over one hundred commercial test publishers are listed and described."
Village Publishing "Village Publishing publishes psychological tests and materials used by psychologists in child custody evaluations. The Village Publishing web site is an "on-line catalog" that fully lists and describes the tests and materials, as well as facilitates orders."

Write to Dr. Dewey at psywww@gmail.com.

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