3  Types of Assessment

A fundamentally important distinction exists between two qualitatively different types of assessment. If assessment responses can be reasonably categorized as correct or incorrect, you are dealing with a (see also Note 3.1). If assessment responses are not intended to be interpreted as correct and incorrect, the assessment should be referred to as an inventory. There are many meaningful differences between (true) tests and inventories (see Section 3.1), but the most consequential is that (true) tests are subject to different sources of error than are Psychological inventories.

flowchart TD
    A(Assessment) -->|True/False| B(Test)
    A(Assessment) --> C(Inventory)

Note 3.1

Tests may appropriately and synonymously be alternatively referred to as exams or true tests. The true test declaration is a compromise used by Psychologists that acknowledges that the broader assessment field has been inconsistent in its reservation of the use of the term, test, to refer only to assessments whose responses are dichotomized as correct or incorrect.

The Standards treat the subordinate word “test” as being synonymous with the superordinate term “assessment”. This is an unfortunate legacy concession and most likely the result of “serving multiple masters yet satisfying none”. The Standards is a resource meant to be applicable across disciplines. Within educational contexts, the semantic distinction is unnecessary (the assessments in education are almost universally true tests). Psychologists, however, should always be careful in their communications – if the measure is intended to reflect correct and incorrect, it is a test. If scores are not intended to convey correct or incorrect, it is an inventory.

3.1 Characteristics

The standard item characteristics that >NOTE. maybe better within item analysis section