Week 5 Flashcards
Psychological assessment- what’s the difference between testing and assessment?
Psychological Assessment – can include testing, but is more comprehensive than just giving someone a test. Clinical assessment typically includes;
- An interview/session where a therapist asks about the current problem, family history, medical history
- Observing the person in a particular setting (eg classroom)
- A test/scale/questionnaire to measure symptoms
- A checklist the therapist completes to make sure they have noted all relevant details
- Reviewing collateral information – medical reports, school reports, talking to family members etc
Testing in clinical psychology
- Diagnosing clinical disorders and mental health issues
- Assessing risk/severity of symptoms
- Measuring efficacy of treatment interventions
Testing in neuropsychology
- Assessment of behavioural and functional changes associated with neurological illness (eg dementia) or injury (eg stroke, brain injury).
- Measuring efficacy of treatment interventions
- Measuring specific cognitive function
Testing in organisation/HR
- Assessing suitability for a particular role – aptitude tests (eg Army)
- Measuring performance
Assessment in educational/developmental psychology:
- Assessing learning abilities (eg giftedness, learning disorders)
- Observing and managing classroom behaviour
- Measuring developmental stages (also in later life)
Assessment in health psychology
- Assessment of motivation/ability to change health-related behaviours (eg giving up smoking)
- Chronic pain management
- Pre-surgery (eg plastic surgery – is there a body image disorder?)
Assessment in forensic psychology
- Assessing risk
- Behavioural issues
- Impact reports
Interviewing skills:
Not just what people say, it’s also what they don’t say (ie avoiding questions)
Also important to consider non-verbal signs:
- Bodily behaviour (slouched,fidgety etc)
- Eye behaviour (eg avoiding making eye contact)
- Emotional tone (how is the person really feeling? too much? too little? discordant?)
- Physiological responses(blushing,shaking)
- General appearance (hair brushed,clothing style)
Interaction skills and presentation:
So, you are evaluating the person’s presentation…Maybe they are evaluating yours!
Think about how you present:
- Bodily behaviour (see next slide)
- Facial expression (smiling, nodding)
- Voice-related behaviour (e.g., tone, pitch, volume, speed of speech, or pauses)
- Space (e.g., how much physical distance there is between the counsellor and client)
- General presentation (are you working with people who might be disinhibited? Might you have to be physically active – eg play therapy?)
Interaction skills: bodily behaviour unpacked
- S: Face the client squarely.
- O: Adopt an open posture.
- L: Remember that it is possible at times to lean towards the other person.
- E: Maintain good eye contact.
- R: Try to be relatively relaxed or natural in these behaviours.
Clinical treatment : the process
- Initial Assessment – why has the person come to see you? Gather relevant information from various sources
- Case Formulation – make initial diagnosis, think about what factors might be contributing to the current concern
- Treatment Planning – develop an evidence based treatment plan that is concrete, with specific goals, and clear steps describing how to get to the goals
- Implement Plan – talk through the plan and initiate
- Monitoring Progress – this helps both you and the client to be able to look back and see how things have improved (or not!)
- Prepare for closure – what might happen when therapy ends? How might we reduce risk of relapse?
- Closure – provide advice on how to ensure continued wellbeing
Initial assessment:
What to cover:
• Identifying information about the client
• General appearance and demeanor
• History related to the presenting problems
• Past psychiatric/psychological/counselling history
• Educational and job history
• Health (medical history)
• Social/developmental history
• Family history
- The sequence of obtaining this information in an interview is important.
- Begin with the least threatening topics, saving more sensitive topics until near the end of the session.
- As the session progresses, a greater degree of rapport will be established, making it easier for the client to reveal personal information to the clinician.
What are psychometrics?
Psychometrics is a branch of psychology that deals with the design, administration, and interpretation of quantitative tests for the measurement of psychological variables such as intelligence, aptitude, and personality traits.
- Normally starts with a theoretical construct (eg a theory of personality)
- A test can then be designed that should measure the construct of interest, The we can use statistics to check that the test does measure what it is designed to measure
- We can also check how accurate the test is, and even compare it to other tests that measure the same thing
Psychological testing
administering some form of test (pen and paper, computerised), often as part of a broader assessment
Tests can be scored, and those scores can be interpreted. Interpretation can occur in a number of ways, eg:
• A test might have a cut-off – passing the cut-off score may indicate pathology
• A person might be tested repeatedly to see if there is a change in scores
• An individual’s test score might be compared to how a large number of others have scored, to see if the person is above average, below average, average (aka a norm referenced test)
What’s a norm
• Norms refer to the performances by defined groups on particular tests.
What is standardisation and norming?
• Standardisation & norming:
The process of administering a test to a representative sample for the purpose of establishing norms is referred to as standardising a test
What are age norms?
• average performance of difference samples of testtakers who were at various ages at the time of testing (eg IQ tests).
What’re grade (education) norms?
average performance of a person who has completed a specific level of education (eg tests of language function)
What’re sub group norms?
• derived from groups of people identified by specific factors
Things to think about when testing
• Is the test appropriate for the person?
• Is the test a good test?
• Are you using the test appropriately?
• Is the person administering it appropriately qualified/trained?
• Is the test/assessment process ethical?
• Have all details been appropriately recorded?
• Have the results been clearly explained to the person/other
agencies?
There are a range of factors that need to be considered before choosing and administering a test. These are just a few examples:
- Age – is the test age-appropriate?
- Gender – is there differences that need to be taken into account?
- Physical ability – does the person have the physical capacity required for the test (motor, visual, auditory etc)?
- Norms - will it be able to tell if someone is performing as we’d expect?
- Diagnostic – if we want to test for a disorder, is this test able to confirm a diagnosis (ie does the test have a cut-off or some way of confirming whether the person has a disorder?)
Validity and reliability in testing
Validity: is the test measuring what you think it is measuring?
Can you draw meaningful conclusions from it?
Reliability: Is it consistently measuring the construct in question? Are all of the items appropriate and contributing to the overall interpretation of the test?
What’re practise effects in testing
Practice effects – will people learn from previous exposure to a test, and will that inflate scores?
Fatigue in testing
Fatigue – how long are you testing for? Could performance/motivation be impacted by length of testing?
Setting in testing
Setting – is there any distractions that could impact on performance?
Testing and culture
- Language, experience, knowledge, beliefs may all influence test performance
- Ideally, we would create culture free tests – those in which scores are not at all influenced by cultural background. But this has proven to be impossible.
- Instead, tests aim to be culture fair – in this case, there are no systematic differences in the way people from different cultures interpret the test. There might be differences in the ‘typical’ score for a given culture however. So, it is important to gather normative data from different cultures, and compare people against an appropriate sample/population.
