The Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) is a timed

psychological assessment Psychological evaluation is a method to assess an individual's behavior, personality, cognitive abilities, and several other domains. A common reason for a psychological evaluation is to identify psychological factors that may be inhibiting a pers ...

consisting of 18 items pertaining to

field dependence Field dependence is a concept in the field of cognitive styles. It is a one-dimensional model of variation in cognitive style. The concept was first proposed by American psychologist Herman Witkin in 1962. Field dependence/independence was the e ...

and field independence.Demick, J. (2014). ''Group Embedded Figures Test Manual''. Menlo Park, CA: Mind Garden, Inc. The GEFT was constructed by Herman A Witkin, Philip K. Oltman, Evelyn Raskin, and Stephen A. Karp with the goal to provide an adaptation of the Embedded Figures Test (EFT) for group testing.Witkin, H. A., Oltman, P. K., Raskin, E., & Karp, S. A. (1971). ''A manual for the Group Embedded Figures Test''. Menlo Park, CA: Mind Garden, Inc. The EFT was developed by Witkin to assess

cognitive style Cognitive style or thinking style is a concept used in cognitive psychology to describe the way individuals think, perceive and remember information. Cognitive style differs from cognitive ability (or level), the latter being measured by aptitude ...

and analytical ability by measuring field dependence and field independence with figures suggested by Kurt Gottschaldt, a German psychologist and influencer of

Gestalt psychology Gestalt-psychology, gestaltism, or configurationism is a school of psychology that emerged in the early twentieth century in Austria and Germany as a theory of perception that was a rejection of basic principles of Wilhelm Wundt's and Edward T ...

and theory. The GEFT measurement places an individual on a spectrum between field dependence and field independence. The GEFT contains 18 complex figures each in which the respondent must identify a simple form. The respondent does so by tracing the simple form within the complex figure (1) with pencil (for paper-pencil administration) or (2) by clicking and dragging their mouse cursor (for online administration). The GEFT is a timed test elapsing 20-minutes and can be administered to an individual or groups of older children (age 10+),

adolescents Adolescence () is a transitional stage of Developmental biology, physical and psychological Human development (biology), development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood (typically corresponding to the age of majo ...

, and

adult An adult is a human or other animal that has reached full growth. In human context, the term ''adult'' has meanings associated with social and legal concepts. In contrast to a " minor", a legal adult is a person who has attained the age of major ...

s. The GEFT is protected by

copyright law A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...

and is published by Mind Garden, Inc. The GEFT was validated against the "parent" form of the test, the EFT, and the Rod-and-Frame Test (RFT) administered with the portable apparatus (PRFT). Since Witkin, et al. published the GEFT, other researchers have generated additional data, reporting both higher and lower normative samples. The GEFT was validated for exclusive administration via paper and pencil until 2014, when an online version was developed by Jack Demick, a research associate at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

and a clinical and

developmental Development of the human body is the process of growth to maturity. The process begins with fertilization, where an egg released from the ovary of a female is penetrated by a sperm cell from a male. The resulting zygote develops through mitosi ...

psychologist. Since then, a

reliability Reliability, reliable, or unreliable may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Computing * Data reliability (disambiguation), a property of some disk arrays in computer storage * High availability * Reliability (computer networking), a ...

and validity study of the GEFT Online was conducted and showed strong

correlation In statistics, correlation or dependence is any statistical relationship, whether causal or not, between two random variables or bivariate data. Although in the broadest sense, "correlation" may indicate any type of association, in statistics ...

between the paper-and-pencil GEFT and the GEFT Online ( r=.78), which is identical to the test-retest reliability for the paper-and-pencil GEFT.Kepner, M. D., & Neimark, E. D. (1984). Test-retest reliability and differential patterns of score change on the Group Embedded Figures Test. ''Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46''(6), 1405-1413.

References

Psychological tests and scales