Quiz 1

Question 1

what are the 3 major strategies in assessment?

Answer 1

1) interviewing
2) observing behaviour
3) psychological testing

Question 2

When are reliability estimates sufficiently high?

Answer 2

.90 for clinical descision making and .70 for research

Question 3

what are 3 practical issues regarding the context of the test

Answer 3

1) reading level/education of client
2) length of test
3) training required by psychologist

Question 4

what are 3 questions related to the adequacy of norms

Answer 4

1) is norm group representative of client
2) is the norm group large enough
3) are there sub-groups or national norms

Question 5

What are 2 main issues to the degree of error in a test (reliability)

Answer 5

1) human variation (ability is less variable than personality)
2) test methods are imprecise

Question 6

What are 4 primary methods of obtaining reliability

Answer 6

1) test-retest
2) alternate forms (accuracy of test at the time)
3) interscorer
5) internal consistency (kuder-richardson) for pure measures of single variable

Question 7

3 issues regarding test-retest reliability

Answer 7

1) practice effects
2) elapsed time between test
3) stability in what is being measure (e.g., anxiety would be inappropriate)

Question 8

2 strengths of alternative forms relaibility

Answer 8

1) eliminates most carryover or practice effect
2) can examine changes after treatment or changes over time
* avoids many problems from test-retest reliability

Question 9

2 weakness of alternative forms reliability

Answer 9

1) are the 2 forms actually the same?

2) person may change in between the 2 administrations

Question 10

2 strengths of internal consistency

Answer 10

1) best technique to determine the reliability of a trait with high degree of fluctuation
2) administered once so it’s a test of the test items not temporal stability

Question 11

2 weaknesses of internal consistency

Answer 11

1) doesn’t account for “warming up” or fatigues/boredome of the person
2) splitting the test reduces # of items so responses cannot be stablizsed around the mean (longer tests will be more reliable)

Question 12

2 methods for interscorer reliability

Answer 12

1) have the same client’s responses be scored by 2 indvidiuals
2) have 2 indivdiuals test the client (client is tested twice) and compare their scores

Question 13

which type or reliability is a) most suitable for highly stable traits and b) ones that are fluctuating and c) make predictions

Answer 13

a) stable: test-retest preferable
b) unstable: internal consistency
c) test-retest

Question 14

Which is most reliable? Multiple choice or true/false

Answer 14

Multiple choice because T/F format has 50% possibility of the answer

Question 15

which reliability is the highest and lowest?

Answer 15

a) highest: split-half relability

b) lowest: alternate forms

Question 16

Is validity or reliability more crucial to test construction?

Answer 16

Validity

Question 17

What are the 2 steps necessary for test construction:

Answer 17

1) construct must be theoretically evaluated

2) specific operations (test questions) must be developed

Question 18

What is content validity?

Answer 18

Face validity; relevance of instrucment to construct

Question 19

What is criterion validity?

Answer 19

Coparing test scores to outside performance

Question 20

What 2 types of criterion validity are there:

Answer 20

a) concurrent: measure taken at same time (simple and cost effective)
b) predictive: measure taking one after another (appropriate for selection and classification)

Question 21

What is synthetic validity

Answer 21

Extent to which attributes the test measures is relevaent to skills predicted

Question 22

Is criterion validity stronger in IQ or perosnalities?

Answer 22

Criterion validity stronger in IQ test because there is more variation in personality

Question 23

what is construct validity (2 types)?

Answer 23

Degree to which different aspects of a construct should relate to each other (discriminant and convergent validity)

Question 24

what is sensitivity

Answer 24

% of true positive instrument can identify

Question 25

what is specificity

Answer 25

% of true negative

Question 26

What is the a) preferred method and b) least preferred method of validity?

Answer 26

a) construct validity and b) content validity

Question 27

what is incremental validity

Answer 27

Ability of tests to produce information above what is already known

Question 28

what is conceptual validity

Answer 28

Ability to blend data derived from hypothesis testing in coherent picture of person (data + background + behavioural)
- Conceptual validity produces consrtructs as it’s end product

Question 29

what are the 4 steps of clinical judgement

Answer 29

1) data gathering
2) data synthesis
3) clincial judgmeent vs. actuarial
4) judgement of what to include in report

Question 30

2 sources of error in clinical judgement

Answer 30

1) don’t take base rates into account

2) information obtained earlier in the data collection given more importance

Question 31

3 phases in clincial assesment

Answer 31

1) evaluate referral question
2) data collection: be alert to manifestation of disorder, medical condition and substance use
3) interpret data: set of recommendation are clear and provide deeper meaning of person (not just classification)

Question 32

What is the end product of conceptual validity?

Answer 32

Constructs