B7.078 Prework 1: Intro to Psychological Testing and Clinical Case Examples Flashcards
what is psychological testing
a carefully selected subset of an individual’s behavior
components of cognitive functioning
attention, memory, language, IQ
components of emotional functioning
anxiety, depression, thought disorder
components of personality structure
introversion, extroversion, personality disorders
components of skill/performance/achievement assessment
arithmetic, processing speed, hand eye coordination, grade level mastery, aptitude
reliability
the extent to which a test yields the same results in repeated trials
consistency of test measurement when it is repeated in a population of individuals or groups
validity
refers to what the test measures and how well it does it
does the test measure what it is designed to measure?
fundamental prereq for validitiy
reliability
face validity
what a test looks like it measures, at least on the superficial level
- inspection of the plausibility of content by a naïve person
- affects how well a test may be accepted by test takers
why is face validity the least important type of validity
a) it is retrospective rather than prospective
b) some measures have low face validity and good criterion validity
content validity
systematic evaluation of test content to determine whether it covers a representative sample of the behavior domain that is purports to assess
- behavioral domain of interest must be adequately specified and sampled
- should be part of the test construction process
criterion related validity
tests ability to predict an individuals performance on some other measure
- concurrent validity
- predictive validity
concurrent validity
correlation between the test and another measure of the same or similar construct
predictive validity
ability of a test to predict some later outcome
construct validity
overarching form of validity that encompasses all other forms
results from many forms of empirical data including the test content, its relationship to similar or dissimilar measures, its ability to predict behavior, and whether or not it is supported by a theory
convergent validity
test for “A” - high correlation with another test for “A”
divergent validity
test or “A” - low correlation with a test for “B”
sensitivity
proportion of “positives” on a test that have the criteria the test is searching for
type 1 error
incorrectly determining the criteria is present
false positive
specificity
proportion of “negatives” on a test that have the criteria the test is searching for
type 2 error
incorrectly determining the criteria is not present
normative reference
comparison of a participant to a standardized reference population; assume normal distribution
goal of a normative reference
predict individual’s performance level in general and across domains
criterion reference
comparison of participant to particular criteria; assume skewed distribution