Lecture 19 Flashcards
True or False: Three of the six most commonly used assessment procedures used by clinical psychologists in the US are not supported by strong evidence of their reliability, validity, and/or utility.
A. True
B. False
A. True
True or False: Three of the six most commonly used assessment procedures used by clinical psychologists in the US are standardized, reliable, valid, and useful.
A. True
B. False
A. True
Which of the following statements about the clinical approach to assessment and prediction are TRUE?
A. The assessment approach is completely structured and objective
B. The research literature is used to select and measure key variables
C. The clinician combines key variables according to clinical experience and judgement
D. Assessments/predictions are based on prediction equations
E. None of the above
C. The clinician combines key variables according to clinical experience and judgement
What did Grove et al. (2000) find in their meta-analysis of the literature comparing the accuracy of clinical and actuarial methods of assessment and prediction?
A. About half the studies favored clinical predictions
B. Very few studies notably favored actuarial prediction
C. Better trained and more experienced clinicians showed better performance
D. About half the studies yielded better performance for the actuarial approach
E. None of the above
D. About half the studies yielded better performance for the actuarial approach
Which of the following is FALSE about the meta-analysis approach to research design?
A. Meta-analysis estimates the magnitude of an effect of interest across an entire literature
B. Meta-analysis evaluates whether the magnitude of literature-wide effects varies as a function of predictor variables
C. Meta-analysis summarizes the results of a single study
D. Meta-analysis is a highly rigorous approach to literature reviews
E. None of the above
C. Meta-analysis summarizes the results of a single study
What does research indicate about WHY the clinical approach is inferior to actuarial approach?
A. Humans are good at taking base rates into account
B. Humans assign nonoptimal weights to key variables when combining them
C. Humans typically receive extensive feedback on the accuracy of their judgements
D. Humans excel at integrating complex information
E. All of the above
B. Humans assign nonoptimal weights to key variables when combining them
What does research say about WHY so many clinicians favor the clinical over the actuarial approach to assessment and prediction?
A. Formulas are available for many circumstances
B. Formulas are perceived to de-humanize clients
C. Formulas are applicable to a wide array of circumstances
D. Training programs often place high value on scientific approaches
E. All of the above
B. Formulas are perceived to dehumanize clients
How might we try to improve the accuracy of clinical prediction?
A. Use psychological tests that have strong psychometric qualities
B. Use computers as aids in the collection, scoring, and interpretation of clinical data whenever possible
C. Be aware of personal biases
D. Be aware of relevant research in assessment. psychopathology, and intervention
E. All of the above
E. All of the above
Actuarial prediction of violence is clearly more accurate, on average, than clinical prediction of violence. Why do you think that clinicians, on average, are at such a disadvantage relative to actuarial approaches when predicting violence?
Research has documented a large number of influences on the likelihood of violence, many of which interact with one another. We know that it is particularly difficult for humans to collect and
combine information about numerous influences in their heads, whereas equations can be applied to integrate multiple sources of information very reliably. We also know that clinicians tend to ignore base rates and weight different risk factors inappropriately when making predictions, whereas equations take base rates into account and weight influences differentially according to the research literature. Finally, clinicians tend not to receive feedback on the accuracy of their predictions regarding violence, so it is very difficult for them to improve their predictive abilities via feedback (i.e., it is easy to assume that you do quite well at this).
Suppose that we wanted to develop an actuarial approach to predict who is likely to drop out of high school, so that we could make additional services and resources available to these students, How might we go about doing this?
First, we would review the literature to see which variables are associated with dropping out of high school. Then we would determine the best measures of these variables. Then we would get lots of money from the government (i.e. a big grant) to determine which variables, and in what combination, best predicted who dropped out of high school in a large and representative sample of high-school students. In other words, we would develop a prediction equation. We then could use the equation to make predictions about how likely new students are to drop out of high school. After establishing an appropriate cutoff score, we would make additional services and resources available to those students who cleared the cutoff score.
