Thorndike’s Credo: Metaphysics in psychometrics

Endorsing a priori the conviction that any science worthy of the name must measure the attributes it investigates, psychometricians adopted a metaphysical paradigm (without acknowledging it as such) to secure its claim that mental tests measure psychological attributes, a claim that was threatened by the inadequacy of test data to secure it. The fundamental axiom of this paradigm was Thorndike’s Credo (“All that exists, exists in some amount and can be measured”; 1918, p. 16), which entails its central lemma, the psychometrician’s fallacy (“All ordered attributes are quantitative”; Michell, 2009, p. 41), and which, in turn, supplies psychometrics’ primary methodological principle (“interval scales can be derived from ordinal data”). Logically, this framework is flawed at every level: Thorndike’s Credo is metaphysical overreach; the psychometrician’s fallacy is just that—a logical fallacy; and their primary methodological principle, a prioristic thinking.

9. Is intelligence increasing generation after generation?

‘Is intelligence increasing generation after generation?’ discusses the ‘Flynn effect’ of rising IQ. James Flynn noticed that tables of norms for intelligence tests had to be changed every several years. Newer generations were scoring too well on the tests, by comparison with people who were their age some years before. The first response to the Flynn effect suggests that it is real, marking an actual improvement in brain power in successive generations across the 20th century. The second response states that people are not more intelligent, but have become more familiar with the mental tests’ materials. Something in the environment or culture of many countries across the 20th century has led to cognitive ability test scores increasing substantially.

Perception of Employees towards Recruitment Process Adopted by KGISL, Coimbatore

Enrollment insinuates the path toward attracting, screening, and picking qualified people for a work at an affiliation or firm. For specific pieces of the selection strategy, mid-and enormous size affiliations as often as possible hold capable choice delegates or re-proper a bit of the technique to enlistment workplaces. The selection business has five crucial sorts of associations: work workplaces, enlistment locales and mission for new work engines, "head trackers" for official and master enlistment, claim to fame workplaces which have pragmatic involvement in a particular zone of staffing and in-house enlistment. The stages in enrollment fuse sourcing candidates by publicizing or various procedures, and screening and picking potential up-and-comers using tests or gatherings. Sensibility for an occupation is generally overviewed via looking for capacities, for instance correspondence, creating, and PC capacities. Capacities may be showed up through resume , demands for work, interviews, informational or master involvement, the revelation of references, or in-house testing, for instance, for programming getting the hang of, creating capacities, numeracy, and capability, through mental tests or business testing. Other resume screening criteria may consolidate length of organization, work titles and timeframe at an employment. In specific countries, organizations are legally directed to give identical open entryway in enrolling. Business the board writing computer programs is used by various enrollment associations to modernize the testing methodology. Various determination delegates and associations are using a competitor following structure to play out a critical number of the filtering tasks, close by programming gadgets for psychometric testing

Conjoint measurement underdone: Comment on Günter Trendler (2019)

Trendler’s (2019) critique of conjoint measurement fails because he neglects to distinguish standard sequences (human constructions) from series of equal magnitudes (features of quantitative structures). The latter, not the former, is presumed in conjoint measurement. Furthermore, in so far as some mental tests use humans as measuring instruments, the only questionable assumption involved is that the relevant psychological attributes are quantitative, and that assumption is potentially testable using conjoint measurement. Finally, contrary to Trendler, psychological phenomena can be captured and the structure of psychological attributes investigated using conjoint measurement.

Measurement, ontology, and epistemology: Psychology needs pragmatism-realism

Measurement in psychology is at the heart of a major debate in the academic literature. We aim to contribute to a critical discussion of this issue. We propose to reposition the object of this type of measure, namely a mental attribute as measured by mental tests. Mental attributes should be considered not as a true object independent of the knower, but as an emergent property of a person dependent on the social context. On the basis of this clarified ontology, we consider that an empirical approach to measuring a mental attribute is possible. This approach must be resolutely pragmatist and realist. In practical terms, this means that a test needs to be renegotiated relative to the context. The validation of quantitative measures requires verification of a certain number of criteria. Consequently, our work critically explores measures as they are usually implemented in the area of psychometrics.

A History of Mental Ability Tests and Theories

The concepts of measurement and theory have always been central to psychological science. This chapter reviews the history of applied mental tests and the ideas behind them, with a specific emphasis on individually administered intellectual measures in the era of scientific psychology (i.e., after Wundt). The chapter discusses theoretical underpinnings associated with mental tests and test/theory falsifications. Beginning with the contributions of Francis Galton and J. McKeen Cattell and continuing through the present, the topics discussed include anthropometric testing, Charles Spearman’s two-factor theory and general intelligence factor, Alfred Binet and David Wechsler’s pragmatic approaches, Raymond B. Cattell and John L. Horn’s fluid and crystallized intelligence, John B. Carroll’s three-stratum model of cognitive abilities, and Alexander R. Luria’s conceptualization of brain-based, cognitive processing. The chapter closes with a discussion about theory-building and falsification in mental testing and the importance of reconciling theory with clinical practice in psychological assessment.