Performance Testing with Microprocessors: Mechanization is Not Implementation

Microprocessors in the form of personal computers and home game systems are now widely available at affordable prices. Researchers are rapidly acquiring systems for the collection and analysis of data and recording of results. However, the use of these devices parallels the implementation of the early apparatus-based tests which began their development during World War II. Although increased speed in test administration was gained, the mechanization of traditional tests, at times, resulted in alteration of the behavioral factors studied, as well as difficulties with equipment reliability. Pitfalls to be avoided when considering a test for microprocessor mechanization include: (a) equipment factors, (b) quantitative issues, and (c) their interactions. This report outlines the procedures one should follow when implementing a microprocessor based performance test battery.

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Stabilization and Task Definition in a Performance Test Battery

Proceedings of the Human Factors Society Annual Meeting ◽

10.1177/1071181379023001133 ◽

1979 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

pp. 536-540 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Marshall B. Jones

Keyword(s):

Performance Test ◽

Performance Testing ◽

Test Battery ◽

Environmental Research ◽

General Change ◽

Task Definition ◽

Repeated Administrations ◽

Differential Stability ◽

And Task ◽

A Performance

Most tasks show practice effects with repeated administrations, effects that may appear in the group mean, the variance among subjects, or the correlations over subjects among trials or repeated testings. Fortunately, there comes a point in many tasks after which practice no longer produces changes in performance; as we will put it, the task stabilizes. Stabilization in this sense is a key phenomenon for performance testing, the prediction of individual behavior, and the theory of personality. It is also desirable that a task be well-defined, that is, that the average correlation among stabilized trials be high (greater than .80). The paper focuses on differential stability, that is, constancy in the positions of individual subjects relative to one another from one trial to the next. Instability or differential change over a set of consecutive trials may appear either within that set of trials (local change) or between the set and other tasks or preceding trials on the sane task (general change). Of the two forms of differential stability or change the latter, general change, is much the more important. The paper concludes with a brief summary of stabilization and task definition in ten tasks currently under consideration for inclusion in a performance test battery for environmental research.

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