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Topics Select Category CHC Theory Cognitive As*essment Compositator Death Penalty History of Intelligence Theories My Software & Spreadsheets Off Topic Principles of as*essment of aptitude and achievement Psychometrics Psychometrics from the Ground Up R Reblogged. CAVEAT OBSERVATOR: ON THE SEDUCTIVE VALIDITY OF BEHAVIORAL OBSERVATIONS. Seeing is believing, but first impressions do not tell the whole truth. > Well, who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes? > Chico Marx in Duck Soup (1933) The sirens of observed behavior do not seduce us to a watery grave; they sing of truths so satisfying that we cease to sail. At port, we tell tales of whole oceans after having seen a single cove just outside the harbor. It might seem like direct observation would be the final authority that trumps all other forms of evidence. However, there are reliability and validity concerns about direct observation that are every bit as serious as those as*ociated with ability tests, rating It is not that observed behavior gives false information, but the true information it provides is so vivid that other truths are ignored, and Even though we know that behavior can vary considerably from day to day, it is rare for examiners to observe examinees for more than an hour or two in naturalistic settings (e.g., clas*rooms, playgrounds, and group homes). Worse, most direct observation occurs in the unnaturalistic setting of the testing environment. The testing environment pulls for particular sets of temporary behaviors that are easily mistaken for persistent personality traits. Even those of us who intellectually appreciate the allure of the fundamental find it hard to resist the urge to overgeneralize that which we have observed with our own eyes. We have reason to reserve judgment when an examinee does something unusual in the testing environment because the testing environment is itself unusual. The testing environment differs from most other environments, in part because the interaction is most often one-to-one