Psychological examination

Psychological evaluation is defined as a way of assessing an individual's behavior, personality, cognitive abilities, and several other domains. The purpose behind many modern psychological evaluations is to try to pinpoint what is happening in someone's psychological life that may be inhibiting their ability to behave or feel in more appropriate or constructive ways. It is the mental equivalent of physical examination.

Psychological evaluation has been around for roughly 200 years. It started in China, and many psychologists throughout Europe worked to develop methods of testing into the 1900s. The first tests focused on aptitude. Eventually scientists tried to gauge mental processes in patients with brain damage, then children with special needs.

Psychological evaluation has its roots in China in the 1800s. This primitive form of testing was used to determine people’s eligibility to hold public office. Those who wanted a position were locked in a room and wrote essays and poems for long periods of time. Those who passed moved onto the next round. This continued until 1-3 people were considered eligible to hold office. Early written exams also included material about civil law, military affairs, agriculture, revenue, and geography. These methods were not popular amongst citizens and were therefore abolished in 1906.

Also in the 1800s, Hubert von Grashey developed a battery to determine the abilities of brain-damaged patients. This test was also not favorable, as it took over 100 hours to administer. However, this influenced Wilhelm Wundt, who had the first psychological laboratory in Germany. His tests were shorter, but used similar techniques. Wundt also measured mental processes and acknowledged the fact that there are individual differences between people.

Frances Galton established the first tests in London for measuring IQ. He tested thousands of people, examining their physical characteristics as a basis for his results and many of the records remain today.James Cattell studied with him, and eventually worked on his own with brass instruments for evaluation. His studies led to his paper “Mental Tests and Measurements,” one of the most famous writings on psychological evaluation. He also coined the term “mental test” in this paper.

As the 1900s began, Alfred Binet was also studying evaluation. However, he was more interested in distinguishing children with special needs from their peers after he could not prove in his other research that magnets could cure hysteria. He did his research in France, with the help of Theodore Simon. They created a list of questions that were used to determine if children would receive regular instruction, or would participate in special education programs. Their battery was continually revised and developed, until 1911 when the Binet-Simon questionnaire was finalized for different age levels.

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