IGNOU Organizes Conference on Psychological Measurement

New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Open University’s (IGNOU’s), School of Social Sciences (SOSS) has organized a two-day conference on 'Psychological Measurement: Strategies for the New Millennium' on March 4 and 5, 2011. Pro-VC Prof P.R. Ramanujam while inaugurating the conference has told that the modern societies, including India, are in a flux and need the intervention of disciplines like psychology to understand the complex problems and issues faced by people.

As per sources, the conference, held at the Convention Centre emphasized on two main concerns with regard to psychometry.

Firstly, what is the extent to which the contents and methods have changed with the changing world and how do we justify the use of old testing procedures, if we do; and secondly the concerns about the use of American and European testing tools on Indian population - do we have other choices that we can adopt? Can we standardize these tests in Indian context? Can we search for innovative methods?

Prof Ramanujam while releasing a souvenir of abstracts has said that this conference is aimed at evolving strategies to understand the psychological measurement in the context of highly individualized, social and cultural settings, wherein the old techniques may be found wanting. In addition, in a message published in the released souvenir, Vice Chancellor V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai, remarked, there has been a dearth of psychological equipment and test material that are entirely standardized in Indian conditions and exclusively for the Indian population. He also said that experts in the field have made many attempts to devise psychological tests, but very little publicity has been given to their efforts.

Prof Gopinath Pradhan, Director, SOSS, has said that psychological measurement is one of the most significant areas under the field of psychology. He said that the measuring entities are a challenge mainly because these entities are intangible. He said within the span of the century, psychological testing has come a long way. But, in the past 20 years, they have witnessed a changed world with the IT revolution. He also added that the exposure to information of all kind of age groups has indeed exploded, which has also affected psychometric test administration, scoring and interpretation.