On the whole, testing became an essential element of life applied in various spheres. The main objective of testing is provision with additional information which may be extremely important and crucial in different situations. Nowadays, tests affect professional and school experience of individuals because education and human resource professionals often draw out conclusions regarding concrete individuals on the basis of test results. Job application process is almost always accompanied by completion of particular psychometric tests of different types. Such an application procedure allows human resource executives to implement initial screening and select the most appropriate candidates for the further consideration. It is especially convenient when there is a big pool of applicant and it is physically challenging or even impossible to screen every applicant profoundly. Hence, under these circumstances, testing becomes the first stage of the application process.
Educational establishments of all kinds also use tests in order to obtain an important information about every student and understand his individual situation in terms of intelligence, decision- making, personality, etc. It helps educational specialists to create a successful developmental path for every student on the basis of an individual approach. Therefore, in the educational environment, results of tests determine concrete educational intervention of school professionals and influence an academic progress of every student.
There is no doubt that testing became an important element of everyday life widely used under different social conditions. Hence, it is essential to ensure a correct testing and an adequate interpretation of testing results. Otherwise, a lot of mistakes may happen that would produce an extremely negative impact upon the tested people and their future. It may provoke denial of a potentially successful job applicant, failed certification, wrong educational intervention, loss of promising opportunities, and other negative consequences. Adverse decisions can be made on the basis of tests without the requisite psychometric properties. There is a number of factors that should be payed attention to and taken into account by test developers and users.
To begin with, “responsibility for test use should be assumed by or delegated only to those individuals who have the training, professional credentials, and experience necessary to handle this responsibility.Any special qualifications for test administration or interpretation
specified in the test manual should be met” (AERA, APA, &NCME, 1999, p. 114). Of course, it is understandable that a person without a proper qualification is more likely to misuse tests and draw out wrong conclusions. Test developers and users should also consider a number of other important factors during the process of test evaluation. It is reasonable to view the mentioned factors on example of a personality type questionnaire elaborated by Team Technology company (2012, p.1).
Personality questionnaires provide valuable information about personality of every concrete involved individual that helps to assess and determine further cooperation with this particular individual. Besides, personality questionnaires are widely used for enlargement of self- knowledge and self- correction. The test under consideration helps to identify a personality type and leadership style. Its results can be …