Psychological assessments Flashcards
Psychological testing provide concern for what to the test takers
their intellectual abilities, personalities, emotional states, attitudes, and behaviors that reflect lifestyle or interests
Types of reliability
Test-retest, Inter Judge, Internal consistency
Test retest
The degree to which test scores obtained from people at one time (the “test”) agree with the test scores obtained from those people at another time (the “retest”)
Inter-Judge
The extent to which two or more people agree on how to score a particular test response
Internal consistency
How well items on a test correlate with each other
Types of Validity
Content, criterion, construct
content
How well the test reflects the body of information it is designed to tap
criterion and types
The extent to which the test scores relate in expected ways to another benchmark
Concurrent: How well scores on a test relate to other measures taken at the same time
Predictive: The extent to which test scores relate to future performance
construct
The extent to which a test measures a theoretically derived psychological quality or attribute
Standard uniform procedures
The way test is administered
Same instructions
Uniform scoring method : M.C.Q. vs subjective rating
Free of bias: extensive training in conducting and scoring test is mandatory
Having objective indicators like percentiles or percentages
Applicability to test takers from a diversity of backgrounds
Intelligence testing
Charles Spearman, Concept of “g”: individual’s inherited capability and in part the influence of education and other experiences
Info. about person’s cognitive capacities and deficits
Two types of intelligence tests
Individual and Group tests
Stanford Binet Intelligence test
Binet and Simon,1905
1916, modified by Lewis Terman
Age groups: 2-23 years
Total time: 30-90 min
IQ= (Mental age/Chronological age)*100
Yields: Full IQ, Verbal IQ, Performance IQ
Measures 5 abilities:
Fluid Reasoning
Knowledge
Quantitative Reasoning
Visual-Spatial Processing
Working Memory
Weschler intelligence scales
David Wescheler,1939
Deviation IQ
Use with adults
Two scales:
Verbal
Performance
Four characterizations:
Verbal Comprehension,
Perceptual Organization
Working Memory, and
Processing Speed
IQ testing usage
Psychoeducational assessment,
The diagnosis of learning disabilities, or neurological and psychiatric disorders (used as a part of comprehensive assessment)
The determination of giftedness or mental retardation
The prediction of future academic achievement.
In personnel selection when certain kinds of cognitive strengths are especially important.
IQ testing considerations
Needs to be interpreted in the context
Score on IQ may get affected by the other psychological factors
Person’s cultural, ethnic, and racial background needs to be taken into account
Personality and Diagnostic testing
Provide additional means to understand a person’s thoughts, behaviors, and emotions
Can be used separately or as a part of comprehensive assessment
Two types:
Self-report clinical inventories Projective
Self-report clinical inventories
standardized questions with fixed response categories.
Test – taker indicates / reports an extent to which the responses are accurate characterizations of himself/ herself
The scores computed and combined into a number of scales
helps in crating psychological profile
standardized
Judgment needed to interpret and integrate the test scores with the client’s history, interview data, behavioral observations, and other relevant diagnostic information
Easy to administer and score
Can be administered in groups
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
MMPI-2, Published in 1989 by Hathaway & McKinley
567 items containing self descriptions
true” or “false.”
personality and psychological difficulties ( 10 scales) plus validity scales (3 scales), two additional scales: “?” scale, “ can’t say” scale
Validity scales:
Provides information about defensiveness, and whether the individual might have been careless, confused, or intentionally lying during the test
NEO-PI-R
Costa & McCrae, 1992
240-item
five personality dimensions:
Neuroticism (N)
Extraversion (E),
Openness to Experience (O),
Agreeableness (A),
Conscientiousness (C).
Two forms: Self (Form S) for known individuals, such as spouses, partners, or relatives (Form R)
Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI)
Morey, 1991, 1996
344 items constituting 22 scales
4 validity scales, 11 clinical scales, 5 treatment scales, and 2 interpersonal scales.
4-point scale ranging from false to very true.
Provides diagnostic hypotheses and considerations for treatment
SCL-90
Derogatis, 1994
Respondent indicates the extent to which he or she experiences 90 physical and psychological symptoms.
Including somatization, obsessive-compulsiveness, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobia, anxiety, paranoid thinking, and psychoticism
measures current symptoms and can therefore be given on multiple occasions.
Projective techniques
Assumptions:
Unconscious issues exist below the surface of conscious awareness.
When presented with ambiguous stimuli, person projects unconscious meaning to the stimuli
Technique in which the test-taker is presented with an ambiguous item or task and is asked to respond by providing his or her own meaning
Have no clearly defined answers
Use an open-ended format
Present ambiguous stimuli and ask test taker to interpret what they see
Meaning or structure projected onto stimuli
Projections reveal hidden motives
Thought to reveal information about their personality
Rorschach Inkblot Test
Hermann Rorschach
Symmetrical designs
10 cards showing inkblots : 5 black and white, 5 color
The test-taker is instructed to look at each inkblot and respond by saying what the inkblot looks like.
One inkblot is shown at a time, without giving any guidance as to what is expected
The test-taker is then asked to describe what about the inkblot makes it look that way.
While the test-taker is talking, the examiner makes a verbatim record of his or her response and how long it takes to respond
Thematic Apperception Test
Initially, Christiana Morgan and Henry Murray in 1935; later Murray in 1943
Black-and-white ink drawings and photographs that portray people in a variety of ambiguous contexts
Test- takers are requested to tell a story about what is happening in each picture, including what the main characters are thinking and feeling, what events preceded the depicted situation, and what will happen to the people in the picture
Flexible
Behavioural Assessment
Actions carried out by the individual that other people can watch recorded
Used to:
Identify problem behaviors
Understand what maintains these behaviors
Develop and refine appropriate interventions to change these behaviors
Types:
Behavioral interviewing
Self – monitoring
Behavioural Self- report
Client provides information about the frequency of particular behaviors
Information collected through:
Interviews conducted by the clinician,
The client’s self-monitoring of the behavior
The completion of any one of a number of checklists or specifically designed inventories
Behavioural Interviewing
specialized form of interviewing in which the clinician focuses on the behavior under consideration, as well as what preceded ( antecedents) and followed ( consequences) the behavior.
To understand precise nature of the problem
To set goals for intervention
Self monitoring
Client is asked to keep a record of the frequency of specified target behaviors
Target behavior: he behavior that is of interest or concern in the assessment
Limitations of Self-monitoring
Difficult to monitor which exhibit as deep ingrained habits
Keeping records can be cumbersome, may be disruptive
Behavioural checklist
The client is asked to check off or rate whether certain events or experiences have transpired
Behavioural Observation
The clinician observes the individual and records the frequency of specific behaviors, along with any relevant situational factors
Procedure:
To select the target behavior
Defining target behavior clearly
Conducted in natural context
Environmental assessment scale
Provides information about the person’s social or living environment
Takes into account the role of social and family context in development and maintenance of the symptoms
Ask the individual to rate certain key dimensions hypothesized to influence behavior.
Rudolf Moos’ scales include ratings of the family environment, the school, the community setting, or a long-term care institution
Psychophysiological assessments
To assess the bodily responses to a given situation
Assessing changes in the body that are associated with psychological or emotional experiences, especially changes in a person’s cardiovascular system, muscles, skin, and brain.
ECG (electrocardiogram)
To assess cardiovascular system
Composed of the heart and blood vessels
electromyography (EMG)
Measure of the electrical activity of the muscles
To assess muscular tension, physiological indicator of stress
Galvanic skin response (GSR)
sensitive indicator of emotional responses, such as fear and anxiety
provides information through assessing changes in skin
Brain Imaging techniques
Electroencephalogram (EEG): measures electrical activity in the brain, an indication of the individual’s level of arousal
Recording is taken by pasting electrodes (small metallic discs) with an electricity-conducting gel to the surface of the scalp
Reflects the extent to which an individual is alert, resting, sleeping, or dreaming
Shows particular patterns of brain waves when an individual engages in particular mental tasks
Provide valuable information for determining diseases of the brain, such as epilepsy (convulsions caused by a chaotic activity of neurons), sleep disorders, and brain tumors
CT scan
Computed axial tomography
series of X-rays taken from various angles around the body that are integrated by a computer to produce a composite picture
Lying in a large X-Ray tube method provides an image of a cross-sectional slice of the brain from any angle or level
Provide an image of the fluid-filled areas of the brain, the ventricles
MRI
Magnetic resonance imaging
Uses radio-waves to construct a picture of the living brain based on the water content of various tissues
The picture obtained from the MRI differentiates areas of white matter (nerve fibers) from gray matter (nerve cells) and is useful for diagnosing diseases that affect the nerve fibers that make up the white matter
