27-09-2013, 03:14 PM
PRACTICE OF PSYCHOMETRIC TESTING IN BANKING SECTOR FOR HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT – AN EXPLORATORY STUDY
Origin:
Psychometric testing is derived from Greek word, where psyche means mind and metron
means measure. In other words, testing of mental ability such as IQ is known as psychometric
test. It also includes the use of tests to measure interests, attitudes and personality.
(www.cpp.com). Much of the early theoretical and applied work in psychometrics was
undertaken in an attempt to measure intelligence. Francis Galton, often referred to as "the
father of psychometrics", devised and included mental tests among his anthropometric
measures. More recently, psychometric theory has been applied in the measurement of
personality, attitudes, and beliefs, and academic achievement. The first psychometric
instruments were designed to measure the concept of intelligence. The best known historical
approach involved the Stanford-Binet IQ test, developed originally by the French
psychologist Alfred Binet. Intelligence tests are useful tools for various purposes.
Psychometrics is applied widely in educational assessment to measure abilities in domains
such as reading, writing, and mathematics. The main approaches in applying tests in these
domains have been Classical Test Theory and the more recent Item Response Theory and
Rasch measurement models. ̳PT‘ is simply a standardized, objective measure of a sample
behavior. It is standardized because the procedure of administering the test, the environment
in which the test is taken, and the method of calculating the individual score are uniformly
applied. It is called objective because a good test measures the individual differences in an
unbiased, scientific manner without the interference of extraneous factors. (Rituraj Kumar,
2007).
What Are Psychometric Tests?
Measuring attributes like height, weight, and strength is reasonably simple. These are all
physical and observable traits that you can assess objectively. But what about factors that
aren't so easy to measure? Psychometric tests include personality profiles, reasoning tests,
motivation questionnaires, and ability assessments. These tests try to provide objective data
for otherwise subjective measurements. For example, if you want to determine someone's
attitude, you can ask the person directly, observe the person in action, or even gather
observations about the person from other people. However, all of these methods can be
affected by personal bias and perspective. By using a psychometric test, you make a more
objective and impartial judgment. Since objectivity is key to using these assessments
Conclusion:
PT was first used by foreign companies, later on it was implemented by Indian organisations
and found it to be very effective and so the same was found by foreign banks. So this can be
followed by our Indian banks also and make use of the effectiveness.
Psychometric tests are considered as powerful tools by organizations for the selection,
development and management of people, because it provides additional relevant information
than that of traditional assessment methods. Further, PT can lead to substantial gains for an
organization in terms of increased output and efficiency, better quality staff, higher morale,
more effective performance, lower training costs and reduced turnover, if tests are properly
administered.