Test as text

Abstract

This paper hypothesizes that textual issues, or the way in which the tests are written, impact their outcome. The paper's conclusions are reached through analysis of the text of a sample lPAT personality test This paper contends that psychologists have created an odd communication system inherent in personality tests. 111e text that results exhibits poor readability, is full of ambiguities, and is riddled with rhetorically-related problems. As a result, test writers have unfortunately de-textualized, de-historicized, de-socialized, and largely de-personalized the tests. The paper concludes that test writers, in this case psychologists, with the goal of writing tests aimed at assigning personality types to individuals would be well served by awareness of metoric, discourse analysis, and psycholinguistics. If they view tests as texts, their tests will become more proper as evaluation tools.