From the history of the use of psychodiagnostics for solving the problems of higher education. Questionnaires and questionnaires
This course work is devoted to psychodiagnostics in higher education. The importance of psychodiagnostics can hardly be overestimated. Nowadays, psychological testing is carried out in almost every university or when applying for a job. Has it always been this way? Or is it a trend of fashion that will soon pass? Is there any sense and practical benefit from psychodiagnostics? Can tests be wrong? We will try to answer all these questions in this work.
The ways and experience of solving psychodiagnostic problems differ significantly in the practice of foreign and Russian higher education. Similar, however, is the very fact that the use of psychodiagnostic tools for solving certain practical problems depends on public opinion and the attitude of society towards assessing the social significance of these problems, as well as the applicability of psychological grounds for solving them.
The most striking example of the influence of social programs and socio-political attitudes in relation to the use of psychological data was the change in attitudes towards psychological testing and the so-called "compensatory training programs" in universities in the United States and Western Europe. Initially, these programs were enthusiastically adopted in the context of public acceptance of broader social assistance objectives. Their use in testing applicants in higher educational institutions made it possible, in particular, to apply for higher education to people who did not have the opportunity to receive decent training in secondary school. Depending on the identified individual levels of knowledge in a particular area, individual training plans were built, which made it possible to rely on the existing groundwork and compensate for the identified shortcomings in individual knowledge systems. The role of the psychologist was essential at the stages of drawing up such individual training programs that brought students from different starting positions to an equally high level of knowledge and ensured their intellectual growth. This was achieved on the basis of the definition of the "zone of proximal development" of the subject (a concept introduced by the psychologist L. S. Vygotsky) and taking into account those individual characteristics that made it possible to direct the student's cognitive activity in such a way as to compensate for the initial shortcomings of his cognitive sphere.
In the 1970s, first in the United States and then in Western Europe, there was a significant turn of socio-political attitudes "to the right", and in the field of social policy, the relevant institutions made other decisions: if money is spent on the development of compensatory training programs, then is it not better to direct them to a different type of use of psychological assistance at the university - for testing during admission to higher educational institutions? Then it will be possible to select as students those people who obviously do not need compensatory programs.
A similar dependence on socio-political attitudes was demonstrated by the change in the attitude of the scientific community to understanding the role of hereditary factors in intellectual development. This time, in an environment of increasing public opinion and democratization of access to the higher education system for socially disadvantaged segments of the population, a number of researchers who demonstrated the influence of the factor of hereditary prerequisites on the development of intelligence were forced to defend themselves, accepting a memorandum that their psychological and psychogenetic research should not considered in the context of their alleged racial or biological attitudes.
In Russia in the 20s of the XX century. the first psychodiagnostic studies of intelligence on student samples were carried out, programs of psychogenetic research were launched. But very soon the very question of the tasks of psychodiagnostics in relation to the problems of higher education was curtailed. At the same time, such a system of admission to higher educational institutions began to take shape, when, due to political attitudes, the criteria for assessing the required level of primary education were deliberately reduced. An analysis of the documents of the first years of Soviet power allows us to trace the change in state policy in this area from an elite-class approach to an ideological-theoretical one. In 1924, on the basis of the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), the People's Commissariat of Education adopted guidelines "On the rules and norms of admission to universities", according to which 50% of working and peasant youth are enrolled in higher educational institutions according to the lists provided by the provincial and regional party and trade union committees ... Later, the Komsomol organizations received the same right, whose members had to answer not only for their social origin, but also for their position in relation to certain internal party disputes. It was party functionaries, not teachers or scientists, who worked on the commission created in 1932 by the Politburo to check the programs of elementary, secondary and higher education.
In 1936, a decree was adopted that essentially prohibited the use of psychodiagnostic methods in educational practice. Although the ban concerned, it would seem, only one of the means of psychodiagnostic work of a psychologist - the development and use of tests, in reality, the very formulation of tasks such as selection into groups based on an assessment of the differentiated severity of certain psychological properties, asking questions about the possibility different levels in the personal or intellectual development of adults, identifying the most intellectually gifted persons on the basis of psychodiagnostic tests. It is clear that it was not necessary to talk about the experience of using psychodiagnostic methods in the practice of domestic higher education against such a background.
At the same time, certain areas of psychodiagnostic research were relatively lucky and received support. First of all, here we should mention the problems of analyzing individual differences at the level of typological properties of the nervous system and understanding (including the psychological dimension) of abilities. In the theoretical development of questions about the role of inclinations, methods of diagnosing general and special abilities of a person, Russian works turned out to be quite well advanced.
Traditional psychodiagnostics and its functions in the education system were sharply criticized by many leading psychologists, both foreign and domestic (L. S. Vygotsky, K. M. Gurevich, L. Kemin, J. Lawler, J. Naem, S. L. Rubinshtein, N.F. Talyzina, D. B. Elkonin and others).
The biggest complaints were about intelligence diagnostics. Most researchers pointed out the vagueness of this concept, noted the limitedness of tests in studying the potential possibilities of mental development, in particular, due to focusing only on the effective side of it, which blocked access to understanding the psychological mechanisms and individual characteristics of the formation of thinking. Traditional tests did not allow building correctional and developmental work, since their content remained unclear, which was based on the experience and intuition of the authors of the test, and not on scientific ideas about mental development and the role of learning in it.
Nevertheless, the complete abandonment of tests after the above-mentioned 1936 decree led, on the whole, to negative rather than positive results. In this regard, it is necessary to note the important role that was played by the publication in the journal "Soviet Pedagogy" (1968 - No. 7) prepared by well-known and very authoritative psychologists A. N. Leontiev, A. R. Luria and A. A. Smirnov "On the diagnostic methods of psychological research of schoolchildren." It directly formulates the provision on the possibility of using tests at school: “Among the brief psychological tests, or tests, are the so-called psychological tests, which were developed in different countries, standardized and tested on a large number of children. Under certain conditions, with an appropriate critical review, such psychological tests can be used for initial orientation in the characteristics of lagging children. "
We see that the legitimacy of the use of tests in the education system is recognized, rather cautiously, with reservations. New approaches to psychodiagnostics were stimulated, on the one hand, by criticism of its theoretical and methodological positions, and on the other hand, by the logic of the development of this branch of science.
In the 1970s, publications were published on the results of mass testing of students (from applicants to graduates) at Leningrad University. They were reasonably criticized for excessive empiricism, which manifested itself, in particular, in the vagueness of the formulations of the goals and conclusions of the research, where any measurable psychological indicators were correlated with each other. But an indirect access to the assessment of the achieved ratio between the higher education system and the factors of intellectual and personal growth was carried out. In particular, it turned out that the most significant shifts in intellectual development were traced for the groups of initially the weakest and average students. On the contrary, for those who occupy the upper third in the general rank range of intellectual achievements in the first years, that is, for students with the best starting positions for studying at a university, on the contrary, there was no change or even a deterioration in psychodiagnostic indicators. Simplifying the problem, we can say on the basis of these data that studying at the university helped the average and weak students well and did not contribute to the intellectual growth of the initially stronger ones.
This simplification concerns, for example, the neglect of such factors as age peaks in the speed indicators of intellectual tests (perhaps a group of stronger students turned out to be at their “peaks” a little earlier), the connection between learning ability not only with the initial potential, but also with the forms of organization of educational activities etc. However, these are already questions of specific scientific analysis, solved in the context of covering the entire field of problems in the organization and interpretation of the data of psychodiagnostic research.
In recent decades, the humanization of works on psychodiagnostics (both research and practical) has also been noted. Now the main goal of psychodiagnostics is to ensure full mental and personal development. Of course, psychodiagnostics makes this available to it in ways, that is, it seeks to develop methods that would help to assist in the development of the personality, in overcoming difficulties that arise, etc. The main goal of psychodiagnostics is to create conditions for targeted correctional and developmental work, developing recommendations, conducting psychotherapeutic measures, etc.
NF Talyzina formulated the main functions of psychodiagnostics in education at the present stage: “It loses its discriminatory purpose, although it retains its prognostic role within certain limits. Its main function should be the function of determining the conditions most favorable to the further development of a given person, assistance in the development of training and development programs that take into account the originality of the present state of his cognitive activity. " Thus, the results of psychodiagnostic tests should serve as a basis for resolving questions about the appropriateness and direction of psychological intervention in the processes of human development and learning.
PSYCHODIAGNOSTICS AS A SECTION OF DIFFERENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY Psychology as a science:
general
differential
In psychodiagnostics, you need to answer the following questions:
What is being diagnosed?
How is diagnostics carried out (as from measurements
go to results)?
Psychodiagnostics as a section of differential psychology refers to
differential psychology
She studies individual differences between people and their variability.
psychological properties
LOW FORMALIZED AND HIGHLY FORMALIZED PSYCHODIAGNOSTIC METHODS
Less formalized:conversations, observations
analysis of activity products
survey
Highly formalized:
questionnaires
questionnaires
PSYCHODIAGNOSTICS AS PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING
The main tool of psychodiagnostics - TESTThe test in the narrow sense means standardized
psychological tests
Tests:
individual and group
written and oral
blank, webbing
hardware, computer
verbal and non-verbal
APPLICATION OF TESTING
In the practice of higher education, the use of psychologicaltesting meets the following objectives:
improving the quality of education
promoting mental and personal development
students
development of psychological growth criteria
professionalism of teachers, use
psychological methods at the stages of selection of applicants
or monitoring the success of training, etc.
HISTORY OF THE USE OF PSYCHODIAGNOSTICS TO SOLVE THE PROBLEMS OF HIGHER SCHOOL
Public opinion and public attitudesgreatly influenced the use of
psychodiagnostic tools "compensatory
training programs »USA and Western Europe
In the 1920s, psychodiagnostics began in Russia
apply for admission to high school
PROBLEMS IN THE PROCESS OF FORMATION OF PSYCHODIAGNOSTICS
The limitations of tests in the study of potentialmental development opportunities
Traditional tests didn't allow building
correctional and developmental work
The content was based on the experience and intuition of the authors of the test, not on
scientific ideas about mental development and the role in it
learning.
PSYCHODIAGNOSTICS AS A SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL METHOD
Psychodiagnostics as a psychological methodused to compare individual properties
Validity is a set of indicators that reflect
different aspects of assessing its conformity (or adequacy)
that psychological reality or that psychological
constructs that are supposed to be measured
MEASUREMENT COEFFICIENTS
Validity Aspects:theoretical - verification of the measurement tool itself
pragmatic - verification of the methodology in terms of its practical
significance, effectiveness, usefulness
Validity coefficient:
low order 0.20-0.30
medium - 0.30 - 0.50
high - above 0.60
Reliability
SCALES USED IN PSYCHOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS
Psychological properties can be measured in the followingscales:
NAMES, where different psychological indicators
can be assigned to different classes
ORDER, or rank scale; with its help determine
the order of the elements one after another, but unknown
division remains on the scale
scale of INTERVALS (for example, intelligence quotient - IQ),
based on the use of which it is possible not only to establish,
which subject this or that property is more pronounced, but also on
how many units is it more pronounced
scale RELATIONSHIP, with which you can indicate in
how many times one measured indicator is more or less
another.
CLASSIFICATION OF PSYCHODIAGNOSTIC METHODS
Types of psychological indicatorsIntelligence tests
Ability tests
Achievement tests
The problem of mental development in connection with success
adaptation in high school
Personality tests
Projective techniques
NOMOTHETICAL AND IDEOGRAPHIC APPROACHES
Nomotheticthe individual severity of all those parameters is measured, through the prism
which the researcher considers each subject
Ideographic
reveals, first of all, precisely those properties that are inherent only
to a specific person, most often used in interviews, conversations
TYPES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL INDICATORS
L - life record (facts of life)T - test (sample, test)
Q - questionnaire (questionnaire)
R. Cattell's classification.
INTELLIGENCE TESTS
INTELLIGENCE is understood as:a wide context of cognitive processes and skills (including
memory features, speed and dynamic properties when solving problems and
etc.)
operationalization of the diagnosed psychological reality in ways
her measurements.
Initially, the tests used the selection of children who were unable to cope
With
general education program
Subsequently, to measure individual psychological characteristics
normal children in order to rank and classify them according to the studied characteristics
IQ TESTS
This coefficient was calculated based on the diagnosticexaminations by dividing the so-called "mental age"
(according to the number of completed test items) for chronological, or
passport, age and multiplying the received quotient by 100.
A value above 100 indicated that
the subject solved tasks intended for a senior
age
IQ limits from 84 to 116
SHTUR ASTUR TESTS
Tests adapted for RussiaSHTUR- for grades 7-9
ASTUR - for applicants and high school students
All test items are based on the material of school
programs and textbooks
ABILITY TESTS
Ability tests are classified:by types of mental functions - sensory, motor tests
by type of activity - technical and professional
tests i.e.
corresponding to a particular profession (clerical, artistic and
etc.)
Professional ability tests:
DAT battery of differential capacity tests
GATB General Ability Test Battery
ACHIEVEMENT TESTS
With their help, they study the success of mastering a specific, limitedwithin the framework of educational material
The test can be used in higher education for:
evaluating the effectiveness of vocational training, comparing different
methods and curricula through
comparison of the achievements of groups learning in different ways.
identifying knowledge gaps among aspiring professionals and their
timely learning
Objectivity, ease of use, brevity of the procedure make them suitable for
certification of workers for the category, for the assessment of qualifications.
However, the work on creating such tests is not easy; it requires special knowledge and qualifications.
THE PROBLEM OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT IN CONNECTION WITH THE SUCCESS OF ADAPTATION IN HIGHER SCHOOL
Because learning is related to age, then in the future a person,who shows extraordinary abilities for his
age will be rewarded, which is not entirely fair
The system rewards early development that can
may or may not be a harbinger of manifestation
abilities in the future
PERSONAL TESTS
Features become the subject of diagnostics.motivation, personality traits, self-attitude,
self-regulation, etc.
R. Cattell's sixteen-factor questionnaire, or 16-PF
a number of questionnaires by G. Ay-Zenk
A. Edwards questionnaire
DESIGN TECHNIQUES
A characteristic feature of all methods of this type is uncertainty, ambiguity of stimulusmaterial (for example, drawings) that the subject
must interpret, complete, supplement, etc.
In general, the techniques of this class are successfully used
in clinical consulting work
QUESTIONS AND QUESTIONNAIRES
Assignments are presented as questions or statementsQuestionnaires can be used to research traits
personality, her interests, preferences, attitudes towards
others and self-attitude, self-esteem, motivation, etc.
Any tests that diagnose personality traits are applicable only in
their culture
PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL METHODS
Differential psychophysiology studies the featuresthe main properties of the nervous system and their manifestations.
Psychophysiological techniques differ from others in that they
are deprived of an evaluative approach to a person
Currently available blank diagnostic techniques
psychophysiological characteristics are aimed at measuring
the most studied at the moment such properties of the nervous system,
as strength-weakness, lability-inertia
PSYCHODIAGNOSTICS IN THE CONTEXT OF EXAMINATION OF GROUPS OF STUDENTS AND HIGHER SCHOOL TEACHERS
Along with the objective components of the educational situation and externallygiven criteria for the success of educational and teaching
work can be divided into such subjective components as:
satisfaction with the process and the results of their activities
interpersonal understanding
ability to control your communication with other people
established motivational structures
readiness for personal growth
INFLUENCE OF TESTING CONDITIONS ON PERFORMANCE OF ABILITY TESTS, INTELLECTUAL AND PERSONAL TESTS
Feedback was identified for college studentsbetween indicators of anxiety and achievement in
intellectual tests
Also for different groups of students are different
test results depending on behavior
experimenter
COMPUTERIZATION OF PSYCHODIAGNOSTIC METHODS
New opportunities predetermined a shift in attitudes in favor of a broadthe use of psychological tests, but at the same time led to
the emergence of illusions that a psychologist is no longer needed, but a teacher or
the student himself can be himself and a psychodiagnostician.
pros
formalization of methods,
high accuracy of data processing,
release of a teacher or psychologist from routine operations
Minuses
it is impossible to draw conclusions about trust in the results, without personal involvement
human
the program cannot replace a psychologist with experience in conducting tests
you cannot see the causal relationship in the responses Chapter 6. PSYCHODIAGNOSTICS IN HIGHER SCHOOL
^ 6.1. PSYCHODIAGNOSTICS AS A SECTION OF DIFFERENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Individual differences between people, or interindividual variability in the severity of certain psychological properties is the broadest understanding of the subject of differential psychology. "Psychodiagnostics is a field of psychological science that develops methods for identifying and measuring individual psychological characteristics of a person" [Psychology. - 1990. - P. 136]. These features include the most diverse qualities and properties of the psyche of a particular person. The psychological understanding of what acts as a "property" is usually based on one or another theoretical approach, and empirically observed or assumed differences between people at the theoretical level of their analysis are described using psychological constructs. But sometimes researchers leave open the question of the theoretical understanding of properties as psychological differences, giving them an operationalist interpretation, which is expressed, for example, in this understanding of intelligence: "... intelligence is what tests measure." The description of the diagnosed differences between people takes into account, as it were, two-level representation of psychological properties: 1) differences at the level of diagnosed "signs", given in the form of certain indicators fixed by the psychologist, and 2) differences at the level of "latent variables", described not by indicators, but by psychological constructs, that is, at the level of supposed hidden and more deep foundations that determine the differences in the signs.
^ Differential psychology, as opposed to general psychology, does not set the task of searching for general patterns of functioning of certain spheres of psychic reality. But she uses general psychological knowledge in theoretical reconstructions of diagnosed properties and in methodological approaches that make it possible to substantiate the relationship in the transitions between the two levels of their representation. The task of differential psychology can be called the identification (qualitative identification) and measurement of differences in the cognitive or personal sphere that characterize the individual characteristics of people. V this raises questions: 1) what is diagnosed that is, to the diagnosis of what psychological properties does a specific psychodiagnostic technique relate to? 2) how the diagnostics are carried out, that is, how is the problem of comparing empirically revealed indicators (“features”) and the supposed hidden deep basis of differences solved? In the context of a psychological diagnosis, a third question usually arises: what are the psychologist's thinking patterns, on the basis of which he moves from identifying individual properties to a holistic description of psychological "symptom complexes" or "individual profiles"?
Distinguish between theoretical and practical areas for the development of psychodiagnostic problems.The theoretical work here is aimed at substantiating psychodiagnostic methods as ways to identify interindividual differences or describe intraindividual structures and explain them within the framework of psychological concepts (or psychological constructs). Justification of the relationship between empirically fixed variables (i.e. obtained by observation, polling, using self-reports, etc.) and latent variables, i.e. the alleged underlying reasons for differences in the structures or severity of mental properties, includes an appeal to both psychological theories and statistical models. In these models, "features" act as sample values of the variable, and the assumed statistical model reflects the nature of the distribution of features (normal distribution or some other).
When developing a psychodiagnostic technique, the concept sampling has a different, non-statistical meaning. It implies that the researcher has selected a group of people whose indicators formed the basis for constructing a measurement scale; another name for this group - normative sample. Usually, the age of people, gender, educational qualifications and other external characteristics by which one sample may differ from another are indicated.
A predominantly qualitative or quantitative description of the identified individual differences means a different degree of orientation of psychologists to one of the two sources when developing psychodiagnostic procedures. The first source is the substantiation of the ways of making a psychological diagnosis using the clinical method.(in psychiatry, in medical child psychology). It is characterized by: 1) the use of ideas about an empirically detectable property as an external “symptom” requiring the opening of the “cause” behind it; 2) analysis of the relationship between various symptoms, i.e. search for symptom complexes covering different structures of latent variables; 3) the use of theoretical models that explain the typological differences between groups of people, that is, the empirically identified types of connections between mental characteristics (whether they are features of intellectual development or personal sphere), as well as postulating patterns of development of the studied psychological reality.
^ The second source is psychometrics, or psychological scaling (psychological dimension). This direction developed both in the depths of experimental psychology and in the course of the development of modern statistical procedures in substantiating psychodiagnostic methods as measuring instruments. The psychological dimension as a field of psychological research also has an independent goal - the construction and substantiation of the metrics of psychological scales, through which "psychological objects" can be ordered. The distribution of some mental properties within a particular sample of people is one example of such "objects". The specificity that the measurement procedures have acquired in the framework of solving psychodiagnostic problems can be briefly reduced to an attempt to express the properties of one subject through their correlation with the properties of other people. So, the peculiarities of the use of psychometrics in such an area as psychodiagnostics is the construction of measuring scales based on comparing people with each other; indicating a point on such a scale is the fixation of the position of one subject in relation to others in accordance with the quantitative expression of a psychological property.
The practical tasks of psychodiagnostics can be presented as the tasks of examining an individual or groups of people. Accordingly, the goals of such surveys as psychodiagnostic practice are closely related to a broader understanding of the tasks of psychological testing.
Depending on the goals of the diagnostic work, the fate of the diagnosis made by the psychologist may be different. This diagnosis can be passed on to another specialist (for example, a teacher, doctor, etc.), who himself decides to use it in his work. The diagnosis made can be accompanied by recommendations for the development or correction of the studied qualities and is intended not only for specialists (teachers, practical psychologists, etc.), but also for the subjects themselves. At the same time, on the basis of the survey, the psychodiagnostician himself can build correctional, developmental, consulting or psychotherapeutic work with the subject (this is how a practical psychologist usually works, combining different types of psychological activity).
Test questions and tasks
1. What is the difference between differential psychology and general psychology?
2. Indicate two different ways of defining the concept of "psychological property".
3. What questions need to be answered when making a psychological diagnosis?
4. List the characteristics that are essential to describe the psychological sample.
5. What is psychometrics?
^ 6.2. LOW FORMALIZED AND HIGHLY FORMALIZED PSYCHODIAGNOSTIC METHODS
In psychodiagnostics, it is customary to distinguish between methods according to the degree of their formalization - on this basis, two groups of methods can be distinguished: poorly formalized and highly formalized. The first includes observations, conversations, analysis of various products of activity. These techniques make it possible to record some external behavioral reactions of the subjects in different conditions, as well as such features of the inner world that are difficult to identify in other ways, for example, experiences, feelings, some personal characteristics, etc. The use of poorly formalized methods requires a highly qualified diagnostician, since there are often no standards for examination and interpretation of results. A specialist should rely on his knowledge of human psychology, practical experience, intuition. Conducting such surveys is often a lengthy and laborious process. Taking into account these features of low-formalized methods, it is desirable to use them in combination with highly formalized methods, which allow obtaining results that are less dependent on the personality of the experimenter himself.
In an effort to increase the reliability and objectivity of the data obtained, psychologists tried to use various techniques, for example, they used special schemes for conducting examinations and data processing, describing in detail the psychological meaning of certain reactions or statements of the subject, etc.
Thus, the famous Russian psychologist M.Ya. Basov, back in the 1920s, he developed the principles of constructing work on the observation of the behavior of children. First, this is the maximum possible fixation of objective external manifestations; secondly, the observation of a continuous process, and not of its individual moments; thirdly, the selectivity of the recording, which provides for the registration of only those indicators that are important for a specific task posed by the experimenter. M. Ya. Basov proposes a detailed observation scheme in which the principles formulated by him are implemented.
An example of an attempt to streamline work with poorly formalized methods is D. Stott's observation map, which allows you to record various forms of school disorientation, including such manifestations as depression, anxiety towards adults, emotional stress, neurotic symptoms, etc. ... [Working ... - 1991. - S. 168-178]. However, in cases where there are well-designed observation schemes, data interpretation remains the most difficult stage, requiring special training of the experimenter, extensive experience in conducting such tests, high professional competence, psychological instinct.
Another method from the class of poorly formalized techniques is the method conversation or survey. It allows you to obtain extensive information about a person's biography, his experiences, motivation, value orientations, the degree of self-confidence, satisfaction with interpersonal relationships in a group, etc. conversation, knowledge of what questions to ask, how to determine the degree of the respondent's sincerity, etc. The most common method of conducting a conversation is interview. There are two main forms: structured(standardized) and unstructured. The first provides for the presence of a pre-developed survey scheme, including the general plan of the conversation, the sequence of questions, the options for possible answers, their rather rigid interpretation (stable strategy and tactics)
Interview can be semi-standardized(stable strategy and freer tactics). This form is characterized by the fact that the course of the interview develops spontaneously and is determined by the operational decisions of the interviewer, who has a general program, but without detailing the questions.
As for the areas of application of the survey, they are extensive.So, interviews are often used to study personality characteristics, both as the main and as an additional method. In the latter case, it serves to conduct either the reconnaissance stage, for example, to clarify the program, research methods, etc., or to check and deepen the information obtained through questionnaires and other methods. For practical purposes, interviews are used for admission to an educational institution or for a job, when deciding questions about the movement and placement of personnel, promotion, etc.
Except discussed above diagnostic interview, aimed at studying personality traits, there is a so-called clinical interview, designed for therapeutic work, helping a person to become aware of their experiences, fears, anxieties, hidden motives of behavior.
And the last group of poorly formalized methods is analysis of products of activity. Among them can be a variety of products, tools, works of art, tape recordings, film and photographic documents, personal letters and memoirs, school essays, diaries, newspapers, magazines, etc. One of the ways to standardize the study of documentary sources is the so-called content -analysis (analysis of content), providing for the allocation of special units of content and counting the frequency of their use.
The second group, highly formalized psychodiagnostic techniques, include tests, questionnaires and questionnaires, projective techniques and psychophysiological techniques. They are distinguished by a number of characteristics, such how to regulate the examination procedure(uniformity of instructions, timing, etc.), processing and interpretation of results, standardization(the presence of strictly defined evaluation criteria: norms, standards, etc.), reliability and validity Moreover, each of the four groups of methods listed above is characterized by a certain content, degree of objectivity, reliability and validity, forms of presentation, methods of processing, etc.
The requirements that must be observed during the test include the unification of instructions, the methods of their presentation (up to the speed and manner of reading the instructions), forms, objects or equipment used in the examination, test conditions, methods of recording and evaluating the results. The diagnostic procedure is designed in such a way that no subject has any advantages over others (you cannot give individual explanations, change the time allotted for the examination, etc.).
All highly formalized techniques will be discussed in detail below.
^ Test questions and assignment
1. What psychodiagnostic techniques are called poorly formalized and why?
2. Give examples of poorly formalized diagnostic techniques and explain why they cannot be completely replaced by highly formalized ones?
3. What requirements should highly formalized psychodiagnostic techniques satisfy?
^ 6.3. PSYCHODIAGNOSTICS AS PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING
In the psychological literature, there are different approaches to the definition of psychological diagnostics as a special method, characterized by a special type of attitude to psychological reality, goals and methods of inference. In the broadest sense, this term means any types of psychological testing, where the word "test" means only that a person has passed some kind of test, check, and a psychologist, on the basis of this, can make a conclusion about his psychological characteristics(cognitive spheres, abilities, personality traits). The methods of organizing such "tests" can be based on all the diversity of the available methodological arsenal of psychology. In any technique used as a diagnostic tool, it is assumed that there is some "stimulus material" or a system of implicit conditions for the "tested" subject (test subject), within which he will implement certain forms of behavioral, verbal or otherwise presented activity, necessarily fixed in certain indicators.
In a narrower sense, tests do not mean all psychological tests, but only those whose procedures are sufficiently standardized, i.e. the subjects are in certain and identical conditions for all, and data processing is usually formalized and does not depend on the personal or cognitive characteristics of the psychologist himself.
Tests are classified according to several criteria, among which the most significant are form, content and purpose of psychological testing. According to the form of the tests, they can be individual and group, oral and written, blank, subject, hardware and computer, verbal and non-verbal. Moreover, each test has several components: a manual for working with the test, a test book with tasks and, if necessary, stimulus material or equipment, an answer sheet (for blank methods), templates for data processing.
The manual provides information on the purpose of testing, the sample for which the test is intended, the results of testing for reliability and validity, methods of processing and evaluating the results. Test items grouped into subtests(task groups united by one instruction) are placed in a special test book(test books can be reused as the correct answers are marked on separate forms).
If testing is carried out with one subject, then such tests are called individual, if with several - group. Each type of test has its own advantages and disadvantages. The advantage of group tests is the ability to cover large groups of subjects at the same time (up to several hundred people), simplification of the experimenter's functions (reading instructions, observing the exact time), more uniform conditions for conducting, the ability to process data on a computer, etc.
The main disadvantage of group tests is the reduced ability of the experimenter to achieve mutual understanding with the subjects, to interest them. In addition, with group testing, it is difficult to control the functional state of the subjects, such as anxiety, fatigue, etc. Sometimes, in order to understand the reasons for the low results on the test of any subject, an additional individual examination should be carried out. Individual tests are devoid of these shortcomings and allow the psychologist to receive as a result not only points, but also a holistic idea of many of the personality traits of the test taker (motivation, attitude to intellectual activity, etc.).
The vast majority of the tests available in the psychologist's arsenal are blank, those. presented in the form of written assignments, for which only forms and a pencil are required. Because of this, in foreign psychodiagnostics, such tests are called tests. Pencil and paper. V subject tests for completing assignments along with blanks can be used a variety of cards, pictures, cubes, drawings, etc. Therefore, subject tests require, as a rule, an individual presentation.
For instrumental tests require special equipment and devices; as a rule, these are special technical means for performing tasks or recording results, for example, computer devices. but computer tests it is customary to separate it into a separate group, since recently this automated type of testing in the form of a dialogue between the subject and the computer is becoming more and more widespread [see. p. 6.10]. It is important to emphasize that this type of testing allows analysis of data that would otherwise be impossible to obtain. This can be the time to complete each test item, the number of refusals or calls for help, etc. Thanks to this, the researcher gets the opportunity to conduct an in-depth diagnosis of the individual characteristics of the subject's thinking, tempo and other characteristics of his activity.
^ Verbal and non-verbal tests differ in the nature of the stimulus material. In the first case, the subject's activity is carried out in a verbal, verbal-logical form, in the second, the material is presented in the form of pictures, drawings, graphic images, etc.
intelligence tests, aptitude tests, achievement tests, and personality tests.
Psychological tests differ from the tests used in the education system as analogs of forms of pedagogical control over the assimilation of knowledge and skills - achievement tests or tests of success (performance, see clause 6.7.5).
In the practice of higher education, the use of psychological testing meets both the goals of the development of psychological knowledge itself and its applied use in the following contexts. improving the quality of education, promoting the mental and personal development of students, developing psychological criteria for the growth of professionalism of teachers, using psychological methods at the stages of selecting applicants or monitoring the success of training, etc. The change in these goals depending on the implementation by social structures of this or that "order" will be partially presented in the next paragraph. Here, we note that psychodiagnostic data (as the results of a psychological diagnosis) can be used wherever their analysis helps to solve other (non-psychological) practical problems and where their connection with the criteria for the successful organization of activities (educational, teaching) is justified or where an independent task is increasing the psychological competence of a person.
So, with a conscious attitude of the teacher to the organization of his communication with students in the framework of the pedagogical process, his solution to the problem of comparing the level of his own communicative competence with the level of other colleagues - or with a socially dictated "standard" - can be included both in the "contemplative" context of self-knowledge, and in a more applied context of decisions about the development of their communication skills.
Psychodiagnostic work performed by means of frontal or “slice” measurements on groups of students enrolled in different courses had a more pronounced research focus. For example, with the help of the projective methodology Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) (see p. 6.7.8), the peculiarities of the development of the motivational sphere of students were identified [Vaisman PC - 1973]. The development of the test was based on the general psychological concept, or the list of sociogenic needs of G. Murray. The severity of different components of this type of motivation as "achievement motive" for 2nd and 4th year students made it possible to identify the following trends in their personal development. If in the junior years the features of the diagnosed “achievement motive” corresponded to the idea of it as a latent disposition, meaning the subject's inclination to focus on outwardly high standards of achievement, but taking into account precisely external assessments and formal parameters of success, then in the senior years, internally grounded assessments and meaningful guidelines begin to prevail. achievements.
The results of this study turned out to be useful for the development of indirect psychological recommendations that help the teacher of higher education to navigate in the systems of students' personal attitudes towards success and failure. But sometimes, as was the case with the introduction of the questionnaire “teacher through the eyes of a student,” psychological data on the perception of another person were tried to be directly connected with the administrative management of the educational process. In essence, the by no means proven assumption was used as a reliable knowledge that the level of the teacher's professionalism manifests itself directly in the subjective assessments of students. This kind of social experiment, leading to changes in the conditions of the teacher's professional activity, was implemented in the most primitive form by the slogan "Psychology - Higher School".
A frequently discussed example of administrative regulation of the use of psychodiagnostic data is the coding of results when testing applicants. We are not talking about the data of preliminary tests in general education disciplines, but about individual characteristics revealed with the help of psychological tests, which can be misused, for example, as implicitly taken into account criteria in the selection competition. The context of the individual's right to maintain confidential information about him is also important here. Abroad, different approaches have been adopted to solving the problem of voluntary participation in psychological testing within the framework of higher educational institutions. Using tests(learnability, tests of intelligence or special abilities) in the procedures for making decisions on the selection of persons at different levels of education can be substantively substantiated, but raise objections due to the possible threat of "psychological discrimination", ie, as a violation of equality in the right to education or to participate in certain social programs.
It is clear that any legal or administrative provisions cannot be substantiated by references to the psychodiagnostic tools themselves. The creation of psychological services in universities in our country is focused on the principle of not only voluntariness, but also the provision of individual assistance to the "client", which can be both a student and a teacher (see paragraph 7 5)
In the practice of higher education, psychodiagnostics can be used for the following purposes. Improving the quality of education, the mental and personal development of students, the development of psychological criteria for the growth of professionalism of teachers, the use of psychological methods at the stages of selecting applicants or monitoring the success of training, etc. Psychodiagnostic data (as the results of a psychological diagnosis) can also be used to organize successful both educational and teaching activities.
For example, with the help of the projective technique, Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), it is possible to identify the features of the development of the motivational sphere of students. The severity of various components of this type of motivation, such as "Achievement motive" for the students of the 2nd and 4th courses, it allowed to reveal the following tendencies of their personal development. In junior courses, students were guided by externally high standards of achievement and took into account precisely external assessments and formal parameters of success, while in senior courses, internally grounded assessments and meaningful benchmarks of achievement prevailed.
The results of this study turned out to be useful for the development of indirect psychological recommendations that help a higher school teacher navigate the systems of students' personal attitudes towards success and failure. Sometimes there is a use, for example, of the data of the questionnaire "teacher through the eyes of a student", in the administrative management of the educational process. In essence, the unproven assumption was used as a reliable knowledge that the level of the teacher's professionalism manifests itself directly in the subjective assessments of students. This kind of social experiment, leading to changes in the conditions of the teacher's professional activity, was implemented in the most primitive form by the slogan "Psychology - Higher School".
A frequently discussed example of administrative regulation of the use of psychodiagnostic data is the coding of results when testing applicants. We are not talking about the data of preliminary tests in general education disciplines, but about individual characteristics identified with the help of psychological tests that can be misused, for example, as implicitly taken into account criteria in a qualifying competition. The right of the individual to maintain confidential information about him is also important here.
Abroad, different approaches have been adopted to solving the problem of voluntary participation in psychological testing within the framework of higher educational institutions. Using tests(learning ability, tests of intelligence or special abilities) in making decisions about the selection of persons at different levels of education is can be substantively justified, but raise objections due to a possible threat "Psychological discrimination" that is, as a violation of equality in the right to education or to participate in certain social programs.
It is clear that any legal or administrative provisions cannot be substantiated by references to the psychodiagnostic tools themselves. The creation of psychological services in universities is focused on the principle of not only voluntariness, but also the provision of individual assistance to the "client", which can be both a student and a teacher.
The ways and experience of solving psychodiagnostic problems differ significantly in the practice of foreign and domestic higher education. The same is the fact of the dependence of the use of psychodiagnostic drugs on public opinion and the attitude of society towards them.
The most striking example of the influence of social programs and socio-political attitudes in relation to the use of psychological data was the change in attitudes towards psychological testing and the so-called "Compensatory training programs" in universities in the USA and Western Europe. Initially, these programs were enthusiastically adopted by the society to solve the problems of social assistance. Their use in testing applicants in higher educational institutions made it possible, in particular, to apply for higher education to people who did not have the opportunity to receive decent training in secondary school. Depending on the identified individual levels of knowledge in a particular area, individual training plans were built, which made it possible to rely on the existing groundwork and compensate for the identified shortcomings in individual knowledge systems. The role of the psychologist was essential at the stages of drawing up such individual training programs that brought students from different starting positions to an equally high level of knowledge and ensured their intellectual growth.
In the 70s, first in the United States and then in Western Europe, there was a significant turning point in the field of social policy. The relevant institutions made other decisions: if money is spent on the development of compensatory training programs, then is it not better to send them to another type of use of psychological assistance at the university - for testing for admission to higher educational institutions? Then it will be possible to select as students those people who obviously do not need compensatory programs.
A similar dependence on socio-political attitudes was demonstrated by the change in the attitude of the scientific community to understanding the role of hereditary factors in intellectual development. Psychological and psychogenetic research should not be viewed in the context of their alleged racial or biologic attitudes.
In Russia, in the 1920s, the first psychodiagnostic studies of intelligence on student samples were carried out, and programs of psychogenetic research were launched. But very soon the very question of the tasks of psychodiagnostics in relation to the problems of higher education was curtailed. At the same time, such a system of admission to higher educational institutions began to take shape, when, due to political attitudes, the criteria for assessing the required level of primary education were deliberately reduced. An analysis of the documents of the first years of Soviet power allows us to trace the change in state policy in this area from an elite-class approach to an ideological-theoretical one. In 1924, on the basis of the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), the People's Commissariat of Education adopted guidelines "On the rules and norms of admission to universities", according to which 50% of working and peasant youth are enrolled in higher educational institutions according to the lists provided by the provincial and regional party and trade union committees ... Later, the Komsomol organizations received the same right, whose members had to answer not only for their social origin, but also for their position in relation to certain internal party disputes. It was party functionaries, not teachers or scientists who worked in the commission created in 1932 year... Politburo to test primary, secondary and high school curricula.
V 1936 A resolution was adopted that essentially prohibited the use of psychodiagnostic methods in educational practice. Although the ban concerned, it would seem, only one of the means of psychodiagnostic work of a psychologist - the development and use of tests, in reality, the very formulation of tasks such as selection into groups based on an assessment of the differentiated severity of certain psychological properties, asking questions about the possibility different levels in the personal or intellectual development of adults, identifying the most intellectually gifted persons on the basis of psychodiagnostic tests. Traditional psychodiagnostics and its functions in the education system were sharply criticized by many leading psychologists, both foreign and domestic (L. S. Vygotsky, K. M. Gurevich, L. Kemin, J. Lawler, J. Naem, S. L. Rubinshtein, N.F. Talyzina, D. B. Elkonin and others).
The complete abandonment of tests after the above-mentioned 1936 decree led, on the whole, to negative rather than positive results.
In the 70s, publications were published on the results of mass testing of students (from applicants to graduates) at Leningrad University. They were reasonably criticized for excessive empiricism, which manifested itself, in particular, in the vagueness of the formulations of the goals and conclusions of the studies, where any measurable psychological indicators were correlated with each other. Testing has shown that the most significant shifts in intellectual development are traced for groups initially the weakest and average students. For students with the best starting positions for studying at a university, on the contrary, there were no changes or even worsening of psychodiagnostic indicators. Simplifying the problem, we can say on the basis of these data that studying at the university helped the average and weak students well and did not contribute to the intellectual growth of the initially stronger ones.
In recent decades, it has also been noted humanization works on psychodiagnostics (both research and practical). Now the main goal of psychodiagnostics is to ensure full mental and personal development. Of course, psychodiagnostics makes this available to her in ways, i.e. seeks to develop methods that would help to assist in the development of personality, in overcoming difficulties that arise, etc. The main goal of psychodiagnostics is to create conditions for targeted correction and development work, making recommendations, conducting psychotherapeutic measures, etc.
NF Talyzina formulated the main functions of psychodiagnostics in education at the present stage: “It loses its discriminatory purpose, although it retains its prognostic role within certain limits. Its main function should be the function of determining the conditions most favorable to the further development of a given person, assistance in the development of training and development programs, taking into account the peculiarity of the present state of his cognitive activity "... Thus, the results of psychodiagnostic tests should serve as a basis for resolving questions about the appropriateness and direction of psychological intervention in the processes of human development and learning.
The main functions of psychodiagnostics in the system of modern higher education are monitoring the formation of the necessary knowledge and professionally important qualities, assessing the characteristics of the mental and personal development of students during training, and assessing the quality of education itself. The use of psychodiagnostic techniques for the selection of applicants to certain educational institutions is becoming more and more widespread. The psychological dictionary gives the following definition of psychodiagnostics: "Psychodiagnostics is a field of psychological science that develops methods for identifying and measuring individual psychological characteristics of a person." according to the severity of the studied features. Psychodiagnostic techniques are designed to quickly and reliably ensure the collection of data about the subject to formulate a psychological diagnosis. In recent decades, the humanization of works on psychodiagnostics (both research and practical) has been noted. Now the main goal of psychodiagnostics is to ensure full mental and personal development. Of course, psychodiagnostics makes this available to it in ways, that is, it seeks to develop methods that would help to assist in the development of the personality, in overcoming emerging difficulties, etc. The main goal of psychodiagnostics is to create conditions for targeted correctional and developmental work, developing recommendations, conducting psychotherapeutic measures, etc.
CLASSIFICATION OF PSYCHODIAGNOSTIC METHODS. LOW-FORMALIZED METHODS (OBSERVATION, ANALYSIS OF PRODUCTS OF ACTIVITY, INTERVIEW, CONVERSATION), THEIR PURPOSE.
The observation method is the oldest method of psychological diagnostics. With its help, you can get extensive information about a person. At the same time, the researcher does not need the consent of the observed and cooperation with them to conduct an observation. observation as a method includes: the purpose of the observation and the observation scheme. Objective of the observation. Observation can be exploratory and specific, strictly defined. The purpose of exploratory observation, which is usually carried out at the initial stage of the development of a problem, is to obtain the most complete description of all sides and relations inherent in this problem, to cover it in its entirety.
Conversation is a method of collecting primary data based on verbal communication. Conversation as a method of psychodiagnostics has some differences in the form and nature of the organization. One of the most common types of conversation is interview.
An interview is a conversation conducted according to a specific plan, which involves direct contact between the interviewer and the respondent (interviewee). In form, it can be: - free (conversation without strict detailing of questions, but according to a general program: a well-balanced strategy in general terms, and tactics are free); - standardized (with a detailed development of the entire procedure, including the general plan of the conversation, the sequence of questions, options for possible answers: a stable strategy and tactics); - partially standardized (stable strategy, and tactics are more free). Depending on the intended purpose, interviews are divided into diagnostic and clinical. A diagnostic interview is a method of obtaining information of general content and is aimed at probing various aspects of behavior, personality traits, character, as well as life in general: clarifying interests and inclinations, attitudes towards parents, brothers and sisters, etc.
And the last group is the analysis of the products of activity. Among them can be a variety of products, tools, works of art, tape recordings, film and photographic documents, personal letters and memoirs, school essays, diaries, newspapers, magazines, etc. One of the ways to standardize the study of documentary sources is the so-called content -analysis (analysis of content), providing for the allocation of special units of content and counting the frequency of their use.
HIGHLY FORMALIZED METHODS (TESTS, QUESTIONS, QUESTIONNAIRES,