The distance learning option for Test User Ability allows you complete flexibility in how you study for the Test User Ability qualification. As all learning and assessment is carried out at a distance, this option also means that no travel is necessary – it could not be more convenient!
You can start the course when you want to and work at a pace to suit you. Throughout the course you will make use of Campus Online, our active learning website, giving you plenty of contact with your tutor and fellow course delegates. The website will support your learning, provide a mechanism for responsive tutoring, encourage communication with peers and enable you to monitor your own progress.
The knowledge-based part of the course is contained in a high quality course manual, with the active learning website providing flexible support — enabling you to learn in a manner that best suits your personal style.
What you will learn
Giving you the knowledge and practical skills necessary to conduct psychometric tests fairly and effectively, this qualification is the ‘industry standard’ for competence in using psychometric tests of ability and aptitude in organisations and related settings.
Accredited and verified by the British Psychological Society, the Test User Ability – Occupational (formerly ‘Level A’) qualification is internationally recognised and gives you access to more than 150 tests from over 15 UK publishers, including paper-based and online materials.
Course Contents
The course is made up of a series of units designed to work sequentially to gradually build your knowledge and understanding:
An introduction to testing
Test scores and scaling
Reliability and validity
Fairness and bias in testing
Administering and scoring tests
Communicating test results
Security and confidentiality
Suitable for
Test User Ability is an open access course which means that no pre-qualifications are necessary. It is open to all. It will develop your competence, provide career opportunities and enhance your confidence in all aspects of assessment. The course is relevant to anyone involved in any of the following areas:
Recruitment and selection
Individual, team and organisational development
Careers guidance
Coaching
Talent management
Outplacement
Key Information
Online
English (UK)
Dates and Costs exc. tax
£ 895.00
What's included
Throughout the course, assessment takes place in two ways:
The knowledge-based part of the course will be assessed online as you work through the units.
Assessment of practical skills in test administration and feedback is done through a live online session (e.g. via Skype) and through written case studies.
Realise Potential has been involved in delivering British Psychological Society courses in test use since 2001. As well as developing our own courses, we have developed courses for other test publishers and consultancies. Our courses are taught by leading practising psychologists with real expertise. Realise Potential is led by a psychologist with extensive expertise in test standards, being a past Chair of the British Psychological Society’s Committee on Test Standards and a member of numerous Society working groups on tests and testing.
The Test User Ability course is delivered in partnership with Real Training, which has been delivering occupational testing courses since 2008. Real Training use the latest technologies to make online leaning accessible and effective, giving delegates the confidence and competence to make a real difference in their workplace.
Throughout the course, assessment takes place in two ways:
The knowledge-based part of the course will be assessed online as you work through the units.
Assessment of practical skills in test administration and feedback is done through a live online session (e.g. via Skype) and through written case studies.
Bias results when test performance is affected by unintended factors and those factors are not evenly distributed between groups. This results in group differences in test performance that are not related to the constructs the test is intended to measure. For example, a test of numerical reasoning that uses a lot of text may be biased against people who have English as an additional language. Group differences do not result from different levels of numerical reasoning ability, but from questions being more difficult for some due to their use of language.
Test developers may address bias through some or all of the following:
. Providing a clear rationale for what the test is, and is not, intended to measure
· Reviewing content to ensure it is accessible and free from complex language
· Ensuring scoring is automated and objective (i.e. free from user bias)
· Providing evidence of any group difference in test scores
· Examining the effect of group membership on individual questions – sometimes referred to as ‘differential item functioning’ or ‘dif’
· Ensuring norm groups used for comparisons are representative of the populations they reflect
· Providing guidance on using the reports and interpreting constructs measured
Reliability is an indicator of the consistency of a psychometric measure (Field, 2013). It is usually indicated by a reliability coefficient(r) as a number ranging between 0 and 1, with r = 0 indicating no reliability, and r = 1 indicating perfect reliability. A quick heads up, don’t expect to see a test with perfect reliability.
Reliability may refer to a test’s internal consistency, the equivalence of different versions of the test (parallel form reliability) or stability over time (test-retest reliability). Each measures a different aspect of consistency, so figures can be expected to vary across the different types of reliability.
The EFPA Test Review Criteria states that reliability estimates should be based on a minimum sample size of 100 and ideally 200 or more. Internal consistency and parallel form values should be 0.7 or greater to indicate adequate reliability, and test-retest values should be 0.6 or greater.
Most test scores are interpreted by comparing them to a relevant reference or norm group. This puts the score into context, showing how the test taker performed or reported relative to others. Norm groups should be sufficiently large (the EFPA Test Review Criteria states a minimum of 200) and collected within the last 20 years. Norm groups may be quite general (e.g. ‘UK graduates’) or more occupationally specific (e.g. ‘applicants to ABC law firm’).
A key consideration is the representativeness of the norm group and how it matches a user’s target group of test takers. It is therefore important to consider the distribution of factors such as age, gender and race in norm groups to ensure they are representative of the populations they claim to reflect. This is particularly important with norms claiming to represent the ‘general population’ or other wide-ranging groups. Occupationally specific norms are unlikely to be fully representative of the wider population, but evidence of their composition should still be available.
Validity shows the extent to which a test measures what it claims to, and so the meaning that users can attach to test scores. There are many different types of validity, though in organisational settings the main ones are content, construct and criterion validity. Reference may also be made to other types of validity such as face validity, which concerns the extent to which a test looks job-relevant to respondents.
Content validity relates to the actual questions in the test or the task that test takers need to perform. The more closely the content matches the type of information or problems that a test taker will face in the workplace, the higher its content validity. For tests such as personality or motivation, content validity relates more to the relevance of the behaviours assessed by the test rather than the actual questions asked.
Construct validity shows how the constructs measured by the test relate to other measures. This is often done by comparing one test against another. Where tests measure multiple scales, as is the case with assessments of personality and motivation, it is also common to look at how the measure's scales relate to each other.
Criterion validity looks at the extent to which scores on the test are statistically related to external criteria, such as job performance. Criterion validity may be described as 'concurrent' when test scores and criterion measures are taken at the same time, or 'predictive' when test scores are taken at one point in time and criterion measures are taken some time later.
Construct and criterion validity are often indicated by correlation coefficients which range from 0, indicating no association between the test and criterion measures, and 1, indicating a perfect association between the test and criterion measures. It is difficult to specify precisely what an acceptable level of validity is, as this will depend on many factors including what other measures the test is compared against or what criteria are used to evaluate its effectiveness. However, for criterion validity, tests showing associations with outcome measures of less than 0.2 are unlikely to provide useful information and ideally criterion validity coefficients should be 0.35 or higher. The samples used for criterion validity studies should also be at least 100.
Overall, whilst a publisher should provide validity evidence for their test, validity comes form using the right test for the right purpose. Therefore, users need to use available validity evidence to evaluate the relevance of the test for their specific purpose.
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