CHAPTER
1
Criteria for Selection and Evaluation
of Scales and Measures
Gregory J. Boyle1, Donald H. Saklofske2and Gerald Matthews3
1University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia;2University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada;
3University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA
The ever increasing knowledge of human behavior emanating from psychological research and allied disciplines
is matched by the need for reliable and valid measures to assess the constructs used in both the research laboratory
and applied settings. Measures of personality and social psychological factors have been a major contribution from
psychology since the early part of the last century and continue to proliferate to this day. There is no lack of interest
in the assessment of the wide range of personal characteristics, both familiar and novel, but rather a demand for
more and better measures. The ever-increasing array of specific scales/measures available to researchers and prac-
titioners alike is a sign of the strength of psychology’s contributions to our knowledge of human behavior.
Concurrent with our descriptions and models of human psychology have been advances in the methods
underlying scale construction and validation. In contrast to how ‘tests’ of 100 years ago were constructed,
standardized, and evaluated, there has been a steady evolution in both the foundations and methods of psycho-
logical measurement and in the rigor demanded by both researchers and practitioners over time. Psychologists
and all others impacted by the study and applications of psychology expect the precision, exactness, and
accuracy in the measures used to assess what are often theory driven constructs (latent traits) such as extraver-
sion, anxiety/neuroticism, self-concept, narcissism, empathy, and perfectionism. Like subatomic particles and
gravity in physics we cannot directly see such hypothetical constructs as intelligence or empathy, but we can
infer their ‘existence’ because of observed individual differences in behavior. Thus, we can create quantitative
models to describe these latent traits and, in the process, also develop measures that reflect their theoretical and
operational definitions.
The rapid growth of psychological tests was readily observed from the early part of the 20th century onward (see
Gregory, 2014 ). By the third decade, the Mental Measurements Yearbook founded by O.K. Buros in 1938 (now
19th MMY; see Carlson, Geisinger, & Jonson 2014 ), along with the Tests in Print series, both published by the Buros
Institute for Mental Measurements (now the Buros Center for Testing), was created to both catalogue and provide
critical reviews by experts on the ever increasing number of assessment instruments. Large test publishing houses,
focusing on the development and marketing of psychological tests appeared early in the last century such as
Houghton Mifflin (now Riverside Publishing), and The Psychological Corporation (now Pearson) founded by
J. McKean Cattell in 1921. A growing journal literature on assessment including both the foundations and profes-
sional psychology applications, but especially new measures, began to appear. Studies of assessment now appear
in peer-reviewed journals such as Assessment; Applied Psychological Measurement; Educational and Psychological
Measurement; European Journal of Psychological Assessment; International Journal of Selection and Assessment; International
Journal of Testing; Journal of Personality Assessment; Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment ;Journal of Psychopathology
and Behavioral Assessment; Journal of Testing and Evaluation; Practical Assessment Research and Evaluation; Psychological
Assessment , as well as a host of personality, organizational, clinical and school psychology journals.
3Measures of Personality and Social Psychological Constructs.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-386915-9.00001-2 ©2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.