Selecting and Developing Instrument of Educational Psychology Research in the Context of Higher Institutions in Nigeria

Educational Psychology is generally seen as application of psychological principles and theories in educational settings. The paper defined psychological testing as an objective and standardised measure of a sample of behaviour. This paper equally identified various types of psychological tests like intelligence tests, personality tests interest, and attitude achievement tests amongst others. The paper identified validity, standardization, reliability among others as characteristics of Psychological tests. The paper also looked at the uses of psychological test which include, identifying student interest, helping students with adjustment problems, guiding students towards educational and vocational goals, conducting researches, among other. The paper describes instrument development as an activity to create new instruments or develop existing instruments following systematic development procedures. The paper also identified financial and time constraints and government policy amongst others as challenges of psychological tests in Nigeria. The paper recommends that researchers should acquaint themselves with the logic and mathematical framework (such as item analysis) provided by test theories for the purpose of test construction and use.