Psychological Tests & Testing — BF 176–176.5

Francis Galton — Hereditary Genius (1869)

Galton, Francis. Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into Its Laws and Consequences. London: Macmillan, 1869

Galton's Hereditary Genius, published in 1869, is the first systematic empirical investigation of individual differences in human abilities and the founding document of the measurement of intelligence. Galton's demonstration that eminence runs in families, his analysis of the distribution of ability using statistical methods borrowed from Quetelet, and his proposal that ability could be measured through sensory and reaction-time tests established the research program that would produce the intelligence test. The work is also the founding document of eugenics, which makes it essential for understanding both the intellectual origins of psychometrics and the darker history of the testing movement. The Thoemmes Press reprint is the standard scholarly edition.

James McKeen Cattell — Mental Tests and Measurements (1890)

Cattell, James McKeen. Mental Tests and Measurements. Mind 15, no. 59 (1890): 373–380

Cattell's 'Mental Tests and Measurements,' published in Mind in 1890, is the paper that introduced the term 'mental test' and proposed the first systematic battery of tests for individual differences. Cattell's tests measured sensory acuity, reaction time, and memory span rather than higher cognitive functions, and were later shown by Wissler not to predict academic performance – a finding that redirected the testing movement toward Binet's approach. The paper is reproduced in several anthologies on the history of psychology and is available through JSTOR. Essential for the history of psychological testing.

Karl Pearson — The Grammar of Science (1892)

Pearson, Karl. The Grammar of Science. New York: Meridian Books, 1957

Pearson's The Grammar of Science, published in 1892, provided the epistemological and statistical foundations for the measurement of individual differences in human traits. Pearson's development of correlation, the correlation coefficient, regression to the mean, and factor analysis – all building on Galton's work – gave psychometrics its fundamental statistical tools. The 1937 Everyman edition and the Dover reprint are the most accessible. While primarily a philosophy of science text, Pearson's contribution to psychometric methodology makes this work essential for the history of psychological measurement.

Hermann Ebbinghaus — Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology (1885)

Ebbinghaus, Hermann. Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology. Translated by Henry A. Ruger and Clara E. Bussenius. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1913

Ebbinghaus's Über das Gedächtnis, published in 1885 and translated by Henry A. Ruger and Clara E. Bussenius for Teachers College, Columbia University in 1913, is the founding document of the experimental study of memory and the first application of systematic measurement to higher cognitive processes. Ebbinghaus used himself as subject to measure the acquisition, retention, and forgetting of nonsense syllables, establishing the forgetting curve, the savings method, and the serial position effect. The work demonstrated that higher mental processes could be measured quantitatively and opened the path from psychophysics to cognitive psychology.

Adolphe Quetelet — A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1835)

Quetelet, Adolphe. A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties. Translated by R. Knox and T. Smibert. Edinburgh: William and Robert Chambers, 1842

Quetelet's Sur l'homme et le développement de ses facultés, translated into English in 1842 as A Treatise on Man, is the work that first applied the normal distribution to human physical and mental characteristics and introduced the concept of the average man as a statistical abstraction. Quetelet's demonstration that human traits are distributed according to the bell curve provided the mathematical foundation for Galton's measurement program and ultimately for all of psychometrics. The 1842 Edinburgh translation by R. Knox and T. Smibert is the standard English edition; available in facsimile reprint from Scholars' Facsimiles.

Alexander Bain — The Senses and the Intellect (1855)

Bain, Alexander. The Senses and the Intellect. 4th ed. London: Longmans, Green, 1894

Bain's The Senses and the Intellect, first published in 1855 and revised through four editions, is the most systematic mid-nineteenth-century account of the association of mental states with neural processes and the work that most directly influenced the development of psychological measurement in Britain. Bain's association of specific mental faculties with physiological processes anticipated the measurement approach of Galton and the later differential psychology tradition. Trained readers of Bain include Galton himself, and the work represents the highest development of British associationism before the experimental era. The fourth edition of 1894 is the standard scholarly text.

Clark Wissler — The Correlation of Mental and Physical Tests (1901)

Wissler, Clark. The Correlation of Mental and Physical Tests. Psychological Review Monograph Supplements 3, no. 6 (1901)

Wissler's The Correlation of Mental and Physical Tests, published as a monograph supplement to the Psychological Review in 1901, is the critical study that demonstrated Cattell's brass-instrument mental tests did not correlate with academic performance and thereby redirected the testing movement from sensory measures toward the higher cognitive functions that Binet would assess. Wissler applied Pearson's correlation coefficient to Cattell's Columbia test battery and found near-zero correlations with grades, ending the first phase of American mental testing and clearing the ground for the Binet approach. Available through university library digital archives.

Alfred Binet and Théodore Simon — The Development of Intelligence in Children (1905)

Binet, Alfred, and Théodore Simon. The Development of Intelligence in Children. Translated by Elizabeth S. Kite. Vineland, NJ: Publications of the Training School at Vineland, 1916

Binet and Simon's articles introducing the Binet-Simon scale, published in L'Année psychologique between 1905 and 1911 and collected in The Development of Intelligence in Children (translated by Elizabeth Kite for the Training School at Vineland in 1916), represent the founding documents of intelligence testing. Binet's concept of mental age, his emphasis on higher cognitive processes rather than sensory acuity, and his insistence that the test was designed to identify children needing special education rather than to rank the general population defined the testing movement's original purpose. The Kite translation is the standard English edition.

Charles E. Spearman — The Abilities of Man (1927)

Spearman, Charles E. The Abilities of Man: Their Nature and Measurement. New York: Macmillan, 1927

Spearman's The Abilities of Man, published in 1927, is the foundational theoretical work in intelligence research and the source of the two-factor theory of intelligence (g and s). Spearman's discovery of the general factor through factor analysis, and his argument that this general factor – general intelligence or g – represents a unitary cognitive capacity that underlies performance across all intellectual tasks, established the conceptual framework within which intelligence research has operated for a century. The Macmillan original edition and the AMS reprint are the standard scholarly texts.

Lee J. Cronbach — Essentials of Psychological Testing (1949)

Cronbach, Lee J. Essentials of Psychological Testing. 5th ed. New York: Harper and Row, 1990

Cronbach's Essentials of Psychological Testing, first published in 1949 and revised through five editions to 1990, is the most influential textbook in psychometrics and the standard reference for the theoretical foundations of test construction and validation. Cronbach's contributions include coefficient alpha as a measure of reliability, the concept of construct validity (introduced with Paul Meehl in 1955), and the generalizability theory of measurement error. The fifth edition published by Harper and Row in 1990 is the standard scholarly text.

J. P. Guilford — The Nature of Human Intelligence (1967)

Guilford, J. P. The Nature of Human Intelligence. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967

Guilford's The Nature of Human Intelligence, published by McGraw-Hill in 1967, presents his structure-of-intellect model, which proposed that intelligence comprises up to 150 distinct cognitive abilities organized along three dimensions: operations, contents, and products. Though the model has not survived empirical scrutiny – the factors Guilford identified do not replicate reliably – the book stimulated an enormous amount of research on the dimensionality of intelligence and on the distinction between convergent and divergent thinking that influenced creativity research for decades.

Arthur R. Jensen — Bias in Mental Testing (1980)

Jensen, Arthur R. Bias in Mental Testing. New York: Free Press, 1980

Jensen's Bias in Mental Testing, published by Free Press in 1980, is the most comprehensive and technically rigorous examination of whether intelligence tests are biased against African Americans and other minority groups. Jensen concludes that the tests are not biased in the technical psychometric sense – they predict academic performance equally well for all groups – but that the group differences in mean scores are real and pose unresolved theoretical and social challenges. The book is essential for collections documenting the scientific debate about test bias regardless of one's view of Jensen's conclusions.

Samuel Messick — Validity (1989)

Messick, Samuel. Validity. In Educational Measurement, edited by Robert L. Linn, 13–103. New York: Macmillan, 1989

Messick's 'Validity' chapter in the third edition of Educational Measurement, published by Macmillan/American Council on Education in 1989 and available in most research libraries, is the most comprehensive statement of the unified concept of construct validity and the capstone of twentieth-century validity theory. Messick argues that validity is not a property of a test but of the interpretations and uses of test scores, and that a complete validity argument must address the construct interpretation, the evidential basis for that interpretation, and the social consequences of test use. Essential for any serious psychometrics collection.

Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray — The Bell Curve (1994)

Herrnstein, Richard J., and Charles Murray. The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. New York: Free Press, 1994

Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve, published by Free Press in 1994, is the most controversial work in the history of intelligence research and the one that most directly addressed the social and political implications of group differences in IQ scores. Whatever one's assessment of its conclusions, the book generated the most extensive scientific debate about intelligence, heritability, race, and social policy since the 1970s and is essential for any collection documenting the social implications of psychological testing. The Free Press edition is the standard text.

Sandra Scarr — Race, Social Class, and Individual Differences in IQ (1981)

Scarr, Sandra. Race, Social Class, and Individual Differences in IQ. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1981

Scarr's Race, Social Class, and Individual Differences in IQ, published by Lawrence Erlbaum in 1981, collects her most important empirical and theoretical papers on the genetics of intelligence, the heritability of IQ, and the meaning of racial differences in test scores. Scarr's adoption studies, which showed that African American children adopted by white families showed substantial IQ gains, and her analysis of gene-environment interaction provided the most influential empirical challenge to both strict hereditarianism and strict environmentalism in the intelligence debate.

Anne Anastasi — Psychological Testing (1954)

Anastasi, Anne. Psychological Testing. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997

Anastasi's Psychological Testing, first published in 1954 and revised through seven editions, is the standard undergraduate and graduate textbook in psychological testing for the second half of the twentieth century. Anastasi's comprehensive, balanced, and technically rigorous treatment of test construction, standardization, reliability, validity, and the interpretation of group differences set the standard for how psychometric issues should be presented. The seventh edition published by Prentice Hall in 1997 is the standard scholarly text.

John B. Carroll — Human Cognitive Abilities (1993)

Carroll, John B. Human Cognitive Abilities: A Survey of Factor-Analytic Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993

Carroll's Human Cognitive Abilities: A Survey of Factor-Analytic Studies, published by Cambridge University Press in 1993, is the most comprehensive empirical survey of the structure of human cognitive abilities ever undertaken. Carroll's three-stratum theory – with g at the apex, eight broad abilities at the second stratum, and narrow abilities at the third – synthesizes the results of more than 460 factor analyses conducted over eighty years and has become the dominant psychometric model of intelligence, incorporated into the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory that guides contemporary test development. Essential for any research collection in intelligence and psychometrics.

Robert J. Sternberg — Successful Intelligence (1996)

Sternberg, Robert J. Successful Intelligence: How Practical and Creative Intelligence Determine Success in Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996

Sternberg's Successful Intelligence, published by Simon and Schuster in 1996, presents his triarchic theory of intelligence as an alternative to the g-factor model, arguing that analytical, creative, and practical intelligence are equally important for success in life and that conventional IQ tests measure only the analytical component. Sternberg's theory has been extensively applied in educational contexts and has influenced multiple-intelligences discourse. The Simon and Schuster edition is the standard text for general collections.

Richard E. Nisbett and colleagues — Intelligence: New Findings and Theoretical Developments (2012)

Nisbett, Richard E., Joshua Aronson, Clancy Blair, William Dickens, James Flynn, Diane F. Halpern, and Eric Turkheimer. Intelligence: New Findings and Theoretical Developments. American Psychologist 67, no. 2 (2012): 130–159

Nisbett and colleagues' 'Intelligence: New Findings and Theoretical Developments,' published in American Psychologist (vol. 67, 2012), is the most authoritative contemporary survey of intelligence research by a distinguished group of researchers representing diverse theoretical perspectives. The article addresses heritability, malleability, gene-environment interaction, group differences, and the social implications of intelligence research, providing the most balanced and scientifically current overview of the field. Standard citation is through American Psychologist 67(2), 2012.

Michael T. Kane — Validating the Interpretations and Uses of Test Scores (2013)

Kane, Michael T. Validating the Interpretations and Uses of Test Scores. Journal of Educational Measurement 50, no. 1 (2013): 1–73

Kane's 'Validating the Interpretations and Uses of Test Scores,' published in the Journal of Educational Measurement in 2013, is the most influential contemporary development of validity theory after Messick. Kane's argument-based approach to validity requires test users to specify the inferences and claims they want to make from test scores and to provide evidence supporting each link in the interpretive argument. The framework has become the standard approach to validity in educational and psychological measurement. Cite as Journal of Educational Measurement 50(1), 2013.

Ian J. Deary — Intelligence: A Very Short Introduction (2001)

Deary, Ian J. Intelligence: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001

Deary's Intelligence: A Very Short Introduction, published by Oxford University Press in 2001, is the most authoritative and balanced brief account of intelligence research for general and professional audiences. Deary surveys the psychometric evidence for general intelligence, the heritability findings, the correlations between intelligence and health outcomes, and the group differences data, consistently emphasizing what the evidence does and does not support. Essential for collections that need accessible current coverage of intelligence research without the polemical dimension of the bell curve debate.

Susan E. Embretson and Steven P. Reise — Item Response Theory for Psychologists (2000)

Embretson, Susan E., and Steven P. Reise. Item Response Theory for Psychologists. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2000

Embretson and Reise's Item Response Theory for Psychologists, published by Lawrence Erlbaum in 2000, is the standard introduction to item response theory for psychological researchers and practitioners. The book covers the one-, two-, and three-parameter logistic models, model fit assessment, and the applications of IRT to test construction, equating, and differential item functioning analysis. IRT has largely superseded classical test theory in large-scale educational and psychological assessment, and this text is the most accessible introduction to the framework for psychologists without extensive psychometric training.

Eric Turkheimer — Three Laws of Behavior Genetics and What They Mean (2000)

Turkheimer, Eric. Three Laws of Behavior Genetics and What They Mean. Current Directions in Psychological Science 9, no. 5 (2000): 160–164

Turkheimer's 'Three Laws of Behavior Genetics and What They Mean,' published in Current Directions in Psychological Science in 2000, is one of the most consequential methodological papers in contemporary psychology. Turkheimer's three laws – that all human behavioral traits are heritable, that the effect of being raised in the same family is smaller than the effect of genes, and that a substantial portion of the variation in complex behavioral traits is not accounted for by genes or families – summarize the behavioral genetics findings in a form that has reshaped how psychologists think about nature-nurture questions. Cite as Current Directions in Psychological Science 9(5), 2000.

Paul R. Sackett, Chaitra M. Hardison, and Michael J. Cullen — On Interpreting Stereotype Threat as Accounting for African American–White Differences on Cognitive Tests (2004)

Sackett, Paul R., Chaitra M. Hardison, and Michael J. Cullen. On Interpreting Stereotype Threat as Accounting for African American–White Differences on Cognitive Tests. American Psychologist 59, no. 1 (2004): 7–13

Sackett and colleagues' 'On Interpreting Stereotype Threat as Accounting for African American–White Differences on Cognitive Tests,' published in American Psychologist in 2004, is the most rigorous methodological critique of the stereotype threat literature as an explanation for group differences in cognitive test scores. The paper demonstrates that the standard framing of stereotype threat research overstates its practical significance and that the laboratory effect sizes cannot account for the observed gaps in standardized testing. Essential for collections documenting the ongoing scientific debate about test performance and social factors.

Denny Borsboom — Measuring the Mind (2005)

Borsboom, Denny. Measuring the Mind: Conceptual Issues in Contemporary Psychometrics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005

Borsboom's Measuring the Mind: Conceptual Issues in Contemporary Psychometrics, published by Cambridge University Press in 2005, is the most philosophically rigorous analysis of the conceptual foundations of psychological measurement since Messick. Borsboom argues that construct validity, as standardly understood, is philosophically incoherent and that a satisfactory theory of psychological measurement requires a realist ontology of psychological attributes. The book has generated a substantial literature in philosophy of psychology and psychometrics.

Howard Gardner — Frames of Mind (1983)

Gardner, Howard. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. 3rd ed. New York: Basic Books, 2011

Gardner's Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, published by Basic Books in 1983 and available in a 3rd edition of 2011, argues that intelligence is not a unitary capacity but a set of at least eight relatively independent intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist. Though the theory has attracted more application in education than support in psychometric research, it has been enormously influential in educational psychology and in public debates about what intelligence tests measure. The Basic Books edition is the standard scholarly text.

Muriel Deutsch Lezak, Diane B. Howieson, Erin D. Bigler, and Daniel Tranel — Neuropsychological Assessment (1976)

Lezak's Neuropsychological Assessment, first published in 1976 and now in its fifth edition (Oxford University Press, 2012), is the definitive reference work on neuropsychological test interpretation and the standard guide to the assessment of cognitive abilities in clinical and research settings. Lezak's comprehensive coverage of tests measuring attention, memory, language, visuospatial abilities, and executive function, combined with her rigorous treatment of what test scores mean and how they should be interpreted, makes this the essential companion to the intelligence testing literature for any serious collection.