Errors in hand scoring objective personality tests: The case of the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire—Revised (PDQ—R).

Objective personality measures potentially eliminate random variation that can result from errors in scoring test items or tallying results. It is usually assumed that the scoring of objective personality tests is error free or nearly so. We checked the accuracy with which trained clinic personnel hand scored one particular objective personality measure, the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire-Revised (Hyler, Skodol, Oldham, Kellman, & Doidge, 1992), using a computer program that was verified to be error free. We found frequent mistakes: 53% of the inventories showed at least one error, and 19% contained errors sufficient to alter clinical diagnoses. Our results align with other studies suggesting that errors are common in scoring psychological tests and argue for wider use of such methods as computerized scoring to prevent avoidable errors and, hence, increase the accuracy of test interpretation.