There are many psychological tests offered by so called organisational consultants, and there are plenty of them too offered in the internet (websites, blogs, facebooks, etc.) by laypeople. At the same time, there are many hadiths ‘offered’ by ustazs or religious teachers/speakers, and there are plenty of them too offered by laypersons in internet (their websites, blogs, facebooks, etc.) too. The problem is: should we just accept blindly whatever psychological tests or hadiths being offered for us to use? This posting tries to show that, in BOTH “scientific” (e.g. psychology) and Islamic (e.g. `ulum hadith) disciplines, stringent criteria should be applied before we can use them as tools to gain understanding and hidayah.
This writing is extracted and adapted from my (and my colleague) paper “Psychometric Evaluative Standards of Personnel Selection Methods” presented at the International Symposium and Measurement and Evaluation (ISME) at Pan Pacific Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2005.
For those familiar with concept of psychometric, assessment, test and measurement, the common evaluative criteria for choosing a test is: (1) reliability, (2) validity, (3) interpretability, and (4) practicality. You may be surprised that, in using and promoting a hadith, the SAME standards are applicable: (1) reliability, (2) validity, (3) interpretability, and (4) practicality. Read the rest of this entry »