There is a NYT article that came out recently about mental health and there was a photo of a psychological test in it and many psychologists were pretty upset. Why is there such secrecy about psychological testing?

  1. Psychological tests assess something that we cannot measure in another way. There isn’t a blood test or a brain scan so we have to use the best tools we have.
  2. Psychological tests are expensive and time-consuming to construct—test authors craft questions and problems and then assess hundreds or even thousands of people to ensure that these tests are doing that they are supposed to do.
  3. As students, people who do psych testing get graduate level training on how to administer these tests in a standardized way—how to ensure that we are not subtlety influencing how a person is responding, so we can accurately interpret them.
  4. For these reasons, there IS a lot of secrecy about measures—if people practice for certain things, we aren’t measuring what we think we are measuring.

Unfortunately, there are some people who try to “practice” for tests or coach their children on particular measures to obtain a certain score or diagnosis. There are even websites out there with “practice materials” for some of these. This is most prevalent with IQ testing, specifically with gifted education and admissions testing to certain programs. Most psychologists are aware of this, and if they have an inkling that a child is familiar with certain measures, they will choose a different, less common measure.

If you or your child is getting a psychological evaluation and you have concerns about certain tests, discuss this with the psychologist! There are many reasons why psychologists might choose specific measures, but looking for them ahead of time to gain familiarity can invalidate these measures.

Dr. Jessica Myszak has had over 11 years of experience performing psychological evaluations with children and adults. She offers both in-person and telehealth evaluations. In addition to seeing clients on the Chicago North Shore, she is able to work with families who reside in Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Nevada, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina, Washington DC, Wisconsin, and soon, Alabama and Kentucky! If you are interested in learning more about potentially working with her, you can visit her website here or email her here to get the process started.