ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at a variety of procedures for gathering data using some form of questionnaire, psychological scale or psychometric test. Psychological tests are both very much enjoyed and very much feared or even scorned. Many people like filling out a questionnaire in a popular magazine or on social media and then turning to the ‘scoring key’ to see what kind of lover they are, how well they treat their friends or how sociable they are – as if they didn’t already know! Oddly, people seem quite kindly disposed towards simple-minded horoscopes yet hostile towards psychologists’ personality tests. Psychometric tests require a significant degree of expertise in their development. In the last case, the psychometric measure may be used as a dependent variable; experimental participants might be assessed for ‘self-esteem’ before and after a ‘treatment’ in which they are made to feel successful and scores compared with those of a control group not given success feedback.
