Measuring Scientific Reasoning for Graduate Admissions in Psychology and Related Disciplines

In two studies, we examined the convergent and discriminant validation of a new assessment of scientific reasoning that could be used for graduate admissions in psychology, educational psychology, human development, and in the psychological sciences more generally. The full assessment ultimately consisted of tests of generating hypotheses, generating experiments, drawing conclusions, serving as a reviewer of a scientific article, and serving as an editor of a scientific journal. The tests had generally good convergent-discriminant validity. Certain socially defined ethnic/racial group differences were observed.