Saskia Naescher, Gabriel Schui & Günter Krampen ZPID – Institute for Psychology Information

Leibniz-Institute

University of Trier naescher@zpid.de

Results

On the impact of Anglo-American psychology on test construction in other languages:

A case example from the German-speaking countries

Presented at the 12th European Congress of Psychology in Istanbul, July 04-08, 2011

Conclusion

References Eberwein, M., Schui, G. & Krampen, G. (2006). Zur Entwicklung deutschsprachiger

Testverfahren in der 2. Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts. Diagnostica, 52,199-207.

Roth, M., Schmitt, V. & Yorck Herzberg, P. (2010). Psychologische Diagnostik in der

Praxis: Ergebnisse einer Befragung unter BDP-Mitgliedern. Report Psychologie, 35,

118-128.

Schorr, A. (1995). Stand und Perspektiven diagnostischer Verfahren in der Praxis.

Ergebnisse einer repräsentativen Befragung westdeutscher Psychologen. Diagnostica,

41, 3-20.

Schorr, A. & Brugger, B. (1995). Diagnostik in der Psychotherapie. ZKPPP, 43, 75-90.

Steck, P. (1997). Aus der Arbeit des Testkuratoriums. Diagnostica, 43, 267-284.

Method

With reference to the recent anglicization of psychology publications from the German-speaking countries (cp. Fig. 1)

the impact of Anglo-American test developments on German psychological tests is analyzed. Research questions:

1) Whether the Anglo-American dominance in psychology research also led to an increase in German-language

adaptions of Anglo-American tests and a decrease of original German test developments.

2) Whether the relative frequency of tests with German and Anglo-American origin differs depending on whether the

tests are published or not.

3) Whether there are proportionally more or fewer German measures of Anglo-American origin in specific psychological

subject classifications.

- Bibliometric method: Analysis of PSYNDEX Tests database, containing 6,359 records of psychological tests from

the German-speaking countries (1,485 published tests).

- Limiting criteria: Tests released or published in German-speaking countries between 1951 and 2010,

categorized as (a) original German test developments, if the country of origin was Austria, Germany or

Switzerland, or as (b) German adaptions of Anglo-American tests, if the country of origin was Australia, Canada,

England, Great Britain, Ireland, New Zealand, North America, the United Kingdom, or the United States. A

total of 4,734 original German test developments (1,141 of them published) and 1,317 German adaptions of

Anglo-American tests (258 of them published) were analyzed.

- Counting of the number of unpublished and published psychological tests of German vs. Anglo-American origin

to generate time series of data in decades.

- Although a slight trend toward German-language adaptions of Anglo-American tests was shown, the

percentage of original German test developments is still very high – representing about 80% of all

German psychological tests. Nevertheless, there is a high percentage of German adaptions of Anglo-

American clinical tests and a common use of these adaptions by practitioners (Roth, Schmitt & Yorck

Herzberg, 2010; Schorr, 1995).

There is a significant need to increase non-English test developments in the European countries as

well as internationally visible publications on test construction, psychological diagnosis, and

assessment from Europe. This is especially true for personality tests and clinical tests.

It is therefore important to translate more non-English European test developments into English.

Currently only 10% of the original German psychology test developments have been translated into

English (cp. Fig. 8).

Fig. 1: Percentages of psychology literature publications in

English language with German authorship from 1951-2010

(PSYNDEX Literature)

Fig. 3: Percentages of original German test developments and adaptions

of Anglo-American tests in (a) published and unpublished German

psychology tests and (b) published German psychology tests

Fig. 6: Number of unpublished and published psychology tests of

German vs. Anglo-American origin according to subject

classification

Fig.8: Percentages of German psychology test

developments with and without English translation

(PSYNDEX Tests)

Question 1) Apart from the overall increase of

psychological tests from German-speaking countries

since the 1970s (cp. Fig. 2), there is a proportionally

higher increase of German adaptions of Anglo-

American tests than of German test developments

during the last two decades (cp. Fig. 4 & 5 and

Table 1).

Question 2) The fraction of German adaptions of Anglo-American tests is slightly lower in published

psychology tests than in unpublished tests (cp. Fig. 3). This effect is particularly noticeable during the 1960s

and the last decade.

Question 3) The percentage of German adaptions of Anglo-American tests of all German measures is very low

within the classification categories „Creativity Tests,“ „Interest Inventories,“ „Achievement & Aptitude &

Ability Tests,“ and, with less than 5%, particularly low in „Scholastic Achievement Tests.“ In contrast, the

percentage is very high in „Personality Tests“ (over 20%) and in „Clinical Tests“ (with more than 31%, cp. Fig.

6 & 7).

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

1951-1960 1961-1970 1971-1980 1981-1990 1991-2000 2001-2010

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800

1. Developmental Measures

2. Intelligence Tests

3. Creativity Tests

4. Achievement & Aptitude & Ability Tests

5. Sensorimotor Measures

6. Scholastic Achievement Tests

7. Attitude Tests

8. Interest Inventories

9. Personality Tests

10. Projective Measures

11. Clinical Tests

12. Behavior Scales

13. Sociographic & other measures

Number of tests (published & unpublished)

according to classification

Adaptions of Anglo-american tests German-language test developments

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

1951-1960 1961-1970 1971-1980 1981-1990 1991-2000 2001-2010

Fig. 2: Number of published psychology tests with German

authorship from 1951-2010 (PSYNDEX Tests)

70

198

852

1154

1383

1077

22

44

153

243

451 404

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

Nu

mb

er o

f n

ew t

ests

Years

German-language test

developments

Adaptions of Anglo-american

tests 38

86

266

211

272 268

11

11

38 47

85

66

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

Nu

mb

er o

f n

ew

test

pu

bli

ca

tio

ns

Years

German-language test

developments

Adaptions of Anglo-american

tests

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

1. Developmental Measures

2. Intelligence Tests

3. Creativity Tests

4. Achievement & Aptitude & Ability Tests

5. Sensorimotor Measures

6. Scholastic Achievement Tests

7. Attitude Tests

8. Interest Inventories

9. Personality Tests

10. Projective Measures

11. Clinical Tests

12. Behavior Scales

13. Sociographic & other measures

Number of published tests according to classification

Adaptions of Anglo-american tests German-language test developments

Fig. 4: Number of German test developments vs. German-

language adaptions of Anglo-American tests in published

and unpublished German psychology tests from 1951-2010

(PSYNDEX Tests)

78%

22%

(a)

German-language test developments Adaptions of Anglo-american tests

82%

18%

(b)

German-language test developments Adaptions of Anglo-american tests

90%

10%

German-language test developments

No English translation English translation

Fig. 5: Number of German test developments vs. German-

language adaptions of Anglo-American tests in published

German psychology tests from 1951-2010 (PSYNDEX Tests)

Fig. 7: Number of published psychology tests of German vs. Anglo-

American origin according to subject classification

Time period (a) % (b) %

1951-1960 24 22

1961-1970 18 11

1971-1980 15 13

1981-1990 17 18

1991-2000 25 24

2001-2010 27 20

Table 1: Percentages of (a)

published and unpublished and

(b) published German

psychology tests of Anglo-

American origin