Correcting Fallacies About Educational and Psychological Testing

The field of psychology is rife with fallacies and myths (Lilienfeld, Lynn, Ruscio, & Beyerstein, in press), and intellectual, neuropsychological, educational, and personality testing are hardly immune to this phenomenon. Although some misconceptions about testing are limited largely to the academic world, others are even more widespread among members of the general public—including prominent public figures. In an interview in the early 1990s, future Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor referred to the “cultural biases built into [standardized] testing,” arguing that these biases have “been shown by statistics.” The notion that standardized tests display marked cultural biases is merely one of the untrue “truths” addressed by the contributors to this volume. At its best, Correcting Fallacies About Educational and Psychological Testing functions as an intellectual vaccine, immunizing readers against intuitively plausible yet unsupported notions about testing. The book comprises an Introduction by the editor (Phelps), seven chapters spanning the fields of intelligence testing, educational achievement testing, psychiatric diagnostic testing, college admissions testing, employment testing, certification and licensure testing, and cognitive diagnostic testing, and an eighth summary chapter co-authored by Phelps and Linda Gottfredson. Useful ancillary features include a glossary of key terms and a website featuring logical arguments against and for intelligence testing.