The starkest difference between this book and the many other textbooks available on psychological testing and assessment is that this text is written by Australians. The book is split into five sections, each with between two and five chapters.
Section 1 (The Context of Psychological Testing and Assessment) provides an introduction to psychological tests, including what they are and their associated advantages and limitations. The process of psychological assessment is also broadly outlined with reference to best practice and ethics. Section 2 (Methodological and Technical Principles of Psychological Testing) goes into detail about the psychometrics underlying psychological tests (i.e., norms, reliability and validity), as well as the process of test construction. Section 3 (Substantive Testing and Assessment Areas) covers two areas highly pertinent to psychological testing and assessment; intelligence and personality. Section 4 (Areas of Professional Application) presents separate chapters on the use of psychological testing and assessment in the fields of clinical, organisational, neuropsychological, forensic and educational psychology. Section 5 (Prospects and Issues) looks to the future by discussing topics such as the increased use of computers and the internet when administering and scoring psychological tests.
Each chapter begins with a list of chapter objectives, key terms, and a ‘Setting the Scene’ section where examples of practical, real-world uses of psychological testing and assessment are provided. Chapters end with a chapter summary, questions readers can use to test themselves on the content covered in the chapter, suggestions for further reading, as well as useful websites. Further, section 2 chapters include exercises that readers can complete to help consolidate the highly technical psychometric information covered in this section, while the chapters included in section 4 contain interviews with practising psychologists that focus on the use of testing and assessment in their particular field of speciality. The instructor resources that come with the text include, for each chapter, PowerPoint slides, an image bank, class discussion topics and activities, and a test bank of multiple-choice and short-answer questions.
The highlight of this book, which was mentioned above, is that it was written by Australians. Several Australian-specific examples of psychological testing and assessment are therefore littered throughout the book (e.g., NAPLAN testing, ability testing with Indigenous Australians), making it very relevant for Australian psychology students. Additionally, the depth with which some topics are covered is impressive. For example, in section 2, which covers the psychometrics of testing, Rasch analysis is detailed, in addition to factor analysis and multitrait-multimethod research designs. A great strength of this book would also have to be the instructor resources that accompany it; in particular, the impressive number of both multiple-choice and short-answer questions available for each chapter. This not only reduces the burden of creating an end-of-unit exam, but enables the development of weekly online quizzes based on the prescribed reading that students can use to check and consolidate their learning. The authors also did an excellent job ensuring that content was up to date, which was clearly highlighted when reference was made to the Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory of cognitive abilities. The chapter on intelligence also included a brief outline of the cross-battery assessment technique.
While some topics covered in the book benefitted from great depth, other topics that are highly central to psychological testing (such as socially desirable responding and acquiescence) were only given a cursory mention, while others failed to gain a mention at all (e.g., the use of behaviour rating scales in the educational psychology field). Additionally, a whole chapter on psychological report writing is arguably justifiable, given that it is often the culmination of many psychological assessments. That the discussion of psychological reports was confined to the chapter on clinical assessment may give inexperienced readers the erroneous impression that report writing is not a common activity in other areas of psychology, such as educational and neuropsychological specialisations. Further, that the topic of vocational assessments was included in the chapter on educational testing, and not organisational, seemed quite odd. A final criticism is that the book was repetitive at times, referring to the same or very similar content in multiple chapters. For example, intelligence tests were covered in three separate chapters.
Notwithstanding the above suggestions for improvement in future editions, my overall impression of the text book is very positive. Comments made by students throughout the semester have been similarly positive.
