Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- PART ONE BASIC ISSUES
- PART TWO DIMENSIONS OF TESTING
- PART THREE APPLICATIONS OF TESTING
- PART FOUR THE SETTINGS
- PART FIVE CHALLENGES TO TESTING
- 16 The Issue of Faking
- 17 The Role of Computers
- 18 Testing Behavior and Environments
- 19 The History of Psychological Testing
- Appendix: Table to Translate Difficulty Level of a Test Item into a z Score
- References
- Test Index
- Index of Acronyms
- Subject Index
- References
16 - The Issue of Faking
from PART FIVE - CHALLENGES TO TESTING
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- PART ONE BASIC ISSUES
- PART TWO DIMENSIONS OF TESTING
- PART THREE APPLICATIONS OF TESTING
- PART FOUR THE SETTINGS
- PART FIVE CHALLENGES TO TESTING
- 16 The Issue of Faking
- 17 The Role of Computers
- 18 Testing Behavior and Environments
- 19 The History of Psychological Testing
- Appendix: Table to Translate Difficulty Level of a Test Item into a z Score
- References
- Test Index
- Index of Acronyms
- Subject Index
- References
Summary
AIM In this chapter we begin by asking, “What can interfere with the validity of a particular test score? If Rebecca scores at the 95th percentile on a test of vocabulary, can we really conclude that she does possess a high level of vocabulary?” While there are many issues that can affect our conclusion, in this chapter we focus mainly on just one – faking. We take a brief look at two additional issues – test anxiety and testwiseness. We use a variety of tests, such as the MMPI and CPI, to illustrate some basic points; you have met all of these tests in earlier chapters.
SOME BASIC ISSUES
Response sets. As discussed in Chapter 2, a test is typically constructed from an appropriate item pool by selecting the items that meet certain rational and/or empirical and statistical criteria. Basically, what a test measures is determined by the content of the items, yet the final score for a person reflects not only the item content, but also the item and response formats – aspects which Cronbach defined as response sets. In a pioneering article, Cronbach (1946) defined response sets as any tendency that might cause a person to consistently give different responses to test items than he or she would have given if the same content was presented in a different form.
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Psychological TestingAn Introduction, pp. 427 - 459Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006
References
, , & (1949). A study of malingering on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Journal of Psychology, 27, 491–499.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
(1994). Attempting to conceal psychological disturbance: MMPI defensive response sets and the Rorschach. Journal of Personality Assessment, 63, 423–437.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , & (1990). An MMPI-based empirical model of malingering and deception. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 8, 45–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , & (1991). A fake bad scale on the MMPI-2 for personal injury claimants. Psychological Reports, 68, 203–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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