Psychological Testing

Question 1

What is the role of testing?

Answer 1

screening for problems, essential part of some diagnoses (intellectual disabilities), comprehensive picture of how affected by sx and change over time

Question 2

What are you looking for in a test?

Answer 2

good sample size (normative), recency of norms, size of SD in relation to mean

Question 3

What is Construct validity?

Answer 3

test truly measures what its supposed to.

Question 4

What two types are objective tests divided into?

Answer 4

Rating scales: rate frequency of different behaviours

Performance tests: demonstrate how well can perform task (IQ)

Question 5

When would you use rating scales?

Answer 5

Assessing frequency and severity of behaviours. A list of behaviours assoc with specific disorder. Can be used repeatedly.

Question 6

What are the limitations of psychological tests?

Answer 6

Diagnosis never solely based on test results- some sx occur in more than one diagnosis, lying, problems with using cut off points to make diagnosis.

Question 7

What is the Classical theory of measurement (Spearman)?

Answer 7

Test scores influenced by two factors:
1. stable attributes we are trying to measure
2. Unmeasured factors that affect measurement
Assumes errors in all we measure

Question 8

Receiver operating curves (ROC) are based on 3 factors:

Answer 8

1. signal strength
2. noise variance
3. Personal tolerance hit/false alarm rate

Question 9

What is a Hit, miss, correct rejection, false alarms/positive.

Answer 9

HIT: correctly identifying someone with illness
MISS: not identifying someone with illness
CORRECT REJECTION: identifying someone who doesn’t have illness
FALSE ALARM: incorrectly identifying someone with illness when they don’t