Foundations of Psychological Measurement

Psychological measurement is an important issue throughout the Department of Defense (DoD). For instance, the DoD engages in psychological measurement to place military personnel into specialties, evaluate the mental health of military personnel, evaluate the quality of human-systems interactions, and identify factors that affect crime rates on bases. Given its broad use, researchers and decision-makers need to understand the basics of psychological measurement – most notably, the development of surveys. This briefing discusses 1) the goals and challenges of psychological measurement, 2) basic measurement concepts and how they apply to psychological measurement, 3) basics for developing scales to measure psychological attributes, and 4) methods for ensuring that scales are reliable and valid.