Prospects and Limitations of Psychological Testing on the Internet

SUMMARY Internet-based psychological testing is a recent extension of computerized testing, a technology developed in the 1980s. The new procedure possesses the benefits and costs of computerized testing and introduces several new fascinating professional opportunities as well as new problems. Side by side with professional tests, numerous, mostly unmoderated, popular, quasi-psychological tests have been published on the Internet in different diagnostic areas: intelligence and special aptitudes, personality traits, emotional states, attitudes and attitude sets, interpersonal and social behavior dispositions, vocational interests and preferences, and more. Net surfers may take most tests for free and receive immediate feedback. Although there are great benefits to this new procedure, risks and problems exist, too. This article reviews representative Internet-based psychological tests and discusses their professional status. Cumulative research that tries to shed light on the possible utility of this testing procedure is surveyed. The prospects and advantages as well as the problems and limitations are discussed, as are proposals aimed at maximizing the former and minimizing the latter. A plea for intensive research, as well as additional and different types of measures, is voiced.

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