Week 3: Classification Assessment Flashcards
What are key features of assessment tools?
- reliability
- validity
- standardization
- norms
- cultural appropriateness and bias
What is reliability?
how trustworthy or consistent a measure is and giving the same results when administered more than once in the same sample
What is validity?
the extent to which empirical evidence and theory support the adequacy and conclusions made based on a given assessment method
What is standardization?
administering a test or measure in a uniform method for everyone
What are norms?
allows an individual’s score to be compared to a reference sample
What is cultural appropriateness and bias?
many measures are developed based on convenience samples which question sample representativeness and bias
What are the different assessment methods?
- questionnaires
- projective measures
- performance measures
- observation
What are questionnaires?
- personality inventories
- behaviour & symptom checklists
What are limitations of questionnaires?
- rater effects
- cultural differences
- over/under rating
- recency bias
What are projective measures?
ambiguous stimuli used to elicit individual responses that reveal information about psychological characteristics because there are no right or wrong answers
What are limitations of projective measures?
- generally not developed following test-construction guidelines or lack key features of assessment tools
- errors in scoring and administration
- potential for bias and rater effects
What are performance measures?
a construct is assessed based on how an individual does on a variety of tasks, usually increasingly difficulty
- intelligence
- academic achievement
- cognitive abilities
What are different types of intelligence tests?
- verbal comprehension
- perceptual reasoning
- working memory
- processing speed
What is verbal comprehension?
knowledge and understanding of language and words
What is perceptual reasoning?
ability to interpret, organize, and solve problems using visual information
What is working memory?
ability to retain info immediately and perform some kind of task with it
What is processing speed?
the ability to perform simple visual tasks quickly and accurately
What is observation?
done throughout the assessment in the office on various characteristics, home observations, and school observation
What are the three main components of an intake interview?
- presenting problem
- psychosocial history
- current situation and functioning
What are issues with client self-report?
- over-reporting symptoms
- under-reporting symptoms
- inaccurate clients responses (non-credible responding)
What are strengths of DSM-5?
- atheoretical
- specific descriptions of symptoms
- potential to increase consistency of diagnostic decisions
- based on input from many experts and exhaustive literature reviews
- process of updating and revision
What are limitations of DSM-5?
- lack of transparency
- growth in new disorder being included
- lack of reliability in diagnoses
- high rates of comorbidity/co-occurring diagnoses
- heterogeneity within disorders
What is cultural validity?
refers to how well assessment procedures address and are sensitive to client-specific cultural perspectives
Why is cultural validity important?
- if not considered, conclusions may be inaccurate and cause client harm
- for implementing diagnostic assessment and mental status protocols
- can help clinicians communicate respect to clients
