Number & MeasureGreek → English
Psychometrics
/ˌsaɪkəˈmɛtrɪks/noun
The statistical theory and practice of measuring mental attributes such as ability, personality and attitude.
The Greek roots
ψυχή
psūkhḗ
soul, mind
μέτρον
métron
measure
Literally: “measurement of the mind”
The story of the word
The word had a rival career in Victorian spiritualism, where psychometry meant reading a person's history by handling their possessions. The scientific sense won out through Galton, Spearman and the testing boom after 1900. Reliability and validity, the field's two central quantities, both date from that early period.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
psychologypsychemetronomebarometer
In a sentence
Her thesis applied item response theory, the backbone of modern psychometrics.
The regulator asked whether the aptitude test met basic psychometric standards.