Psychological Assessment v/s Psychological Testing

Psychological Assessment v/s Psychological Testing

In general, conscious or unconscious, whole counseling process or testing process is termed as psychological assessment but that is not true. Even sometimes psychological assessment and psychological testing is treated in same context.

In actual, there is much difference in psychological assessment and psychological testing.

Assessment is an integral part of day to day life, while in context of counseling, it is one of the important work of the counsellor. All proceeding, accuracy, result, remedies, depends on assessment.
Psychological assessment is a process that involves the integration of information from multiple sources, such as tests related to ability, intelligence, interests or attitudes as well as information from personal interviews.

It is an initial process of counseling that leads the foundation of effectiveness of counseling process. It is obvious that if collected information will be exact and proper further proceedings of counseling will be towards attaining desired goal otherwise, can’t expect desired result with irrelevant information.

A complete psychological assessment should include:
1. Bio psychological history
2. Neurological assessment
3. Psychological testing and
4. Physical examination
Here it can be said that psychological testing is one of the part of psychological assessment.

Psychological testing is a standard procedure of measurement designed to measure characteristics, abilities, personality etc. Psychological tests are written, visual or verbal evaluations administered to assess the cognitive and emotional functioning of children and adults.

So it can be also said that psychological testing collects one aspects of information while psychological assessment covers every aspects of collection of information. That means assessment is a broader term while testing is a narrower term.

Assessment is a process of collecting information through various techniques while test is a standardised procedure to collect information and part of the process of assessment.

Information collected about the client’s behaviour is more accurate and is detailed in assessment while information collected via test.

The assessment process combines and evaluates all the information gathered about an individual while test provides only a part of the picture about a person.
Testing and assessment have been important foundations of counseling and applied psychology. Tests have important roles both as tools to facilitate the goals of counseling and for assessment.