Not many kids dream of becoming a psychometrist. Most of them probably
couldn't tell you what a psychometrist does. Even the professionals in
the field who say they love their work admit they came into the profession
almost by accident.
"Well, actually, when I went for my master's in education degree,
I noticed in the college catalog that if I took just six units more I could
also be an educational diagnostician in Texas," says Deanne Kriesel, a psychometrist
with Moore Public Schools in Oklahoma.
"I got my master's and then I got the certificate for educational
diagnostician in Texas -- that's what they call it there. Then I came
to Oklahoma and they called it a psychometrist."
Kim Surette, who works in the medical field, says her main interest was
psychology. "I didn't decide to become a psychometrist -- I had decided
to become a psychologist."
Barry Spinner also started out with his main interest being psychology.
"My interest in psychometrics came from the psychology side: my area of interest
as a student was research methods in general, and psychometrics was an aspect
of that. Over the years my interests have shifted so that psychometrics is
a bigger part of what I do than it used to be.
"My own work in the area of psychometrics has to do with the design and
testing of questionnaires, tests and surveys. I develop custom-designed tests
for private and public organizations to help them in selecting the best people
to hire and train. It is very important that these tests have good psychometric
properties so that they can be effectively used for this purpose."
Enrico DiTommaso teaches in a university psychology department. "Oh sure,
there is lots of math involved -- we use math, but usually our computer does
the math. Because our samples are sometimes fairly large, and we have a lot
of questions we are analyzing, the computer does the work and we just get
the output and interpret it."
DiTommasco says that while computers do the math, a psychometrist still
has to have a math sense in order to pick up the mistakes.
"If you put in garbage you get back garbage -- that's one of the things
I teach my students. And that's one of the reasons I teach them to calculate
things by hand -- so that they can understand why things are happening. And
if they get an odd output, they can eyeball it and say, 'Hey, there is
something going on here -- this can't be.'"
DiTommasco recommends studying statistics and math and learning research
methods. Computer skills are also important. "Basically, you have to be a
good independent scholar."
Frances Berger's company helps other companies hire or promote the
best computer people for the job. The work she describes is very analytical,
requiring good problem-solving skills.
"I like the analysis best. You put all that into the mill and come out
with an item analysis. That is like the end of a mystery story. You now know
whether you have good questions or not, and which questions are good," says
Berger.
In contrast, Surette likes working with people the best. "I am a clinical
psychometrist so it is probably the therapy I like the most -- the clinical
side -- therapy and psychological assessments."
For Kriesel, the best part is being able to help other people. "The testing
interested me. Since I was in special education for so many years and I was
working with learning disability students, I could tell that some of them
had more intelligence in some areas than in other areas of their lives --
that they were not 'retarded' in any way.
"They just had these strengths and weaknesses. And once you know these
strengths you can build their self-esteem, and then the other areas come up."
Spinner, like Kriesel, finds that being able to help organizations and
people is what sends him home singing at the end of the day. "I get a lot
of satisfaction from the practical projects I work on -- designing a new test
for an organization, seeing it put it to use, and knowing that it will do
a good job.
"The work I do helps to ensure that the best people are selected for a
job and that there is a better match between the people who are hired and
the job they will do. I also get a lot of satisfaction from teaching when
I see that students understand and are able to apply the material I am covering,"
Spinner explains.
While those are the things that make the job enjoyable, there are things
that make it hard. Surette says that the toughest thing for her was dealing
with the tales of terrible abuse. It was difficult for her to leave it at
work.
Kriesel agrees that the job has a downside. "I think the hardest thing
I have to work with is functional behavior assessments. When the child has
brought a gun to school or a child has been smoking drugs or has brought alcohol
to school, [it's hard] trying to work through a situation like that.
"That's the hardest part because the kid is endangering the rest of
the school. He is destroying himself."