Professor: Grant Willis, Ph.D.
Semester: Fall
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: Psy 200(300) or equivalent

Catalog Description: Measurement procedures employed in the measurement of intelligence, aptitudes, abilities, attitudes, interests, and personality. Focus on psychometric principles associated with the various tests.

PSY 434 is an upper-division undergraduate course that addresses the psychological assessment of human individual differences in intelligence, personality, and other specific abilities.
By the end of the semester students will be able to:

• Use psychometric principles associated with test development, reliability, and validity
• Discuss historical, social, ethical, and legal issues germane to contemporary psychological assessment practices

Success in this course requires that the student be an active participant in class discussions and class readings. Students must demonstrate both their theoretical knowledge of the content via the course exams and class project.
Class Topics:

• Ethics
• History
• Litigation
• Legislation
• Basic Concepts of Statistics
• Descriptive Statistics
• Transformed scores
• Factor analysis
• Preparing memos
• Reliability: Classical test theory, empirical estimates, & importance
• Validity: Multitrait-multimethod matricies, interpretation & response bias
• Test bias
• Generalizability theory
• Item response theory

Dr. Willis is a School Psychology Professor. His research interests are in the areas of developmental neuropsychology and psychoeducational decision-making.

Psy 434 meets the Psychology major requirement for a topics course. Psychology majors are required to take 3 topics courses. This course emphasizes on advanced psychometric principles associated with test development, reliability, and validity.

• A guide to psychological testing and assessment