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    Lecture1-Intro To Psychological Assessment

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    shamsuddin
    The document provides an overview of psychological assessment and testing. It discusses key components of assessment including interviews, behavioral observations, and tests. It outlines the importance of psychological testing in areas like diagnosis, treatment planning, and job selection. The history and development of intelligence tests is reviewed. The concepts of standardization, reliability, validity, and test bias are explained as important considerations in evaluating psychological tests. Clinical judgement is also noted as part of the assessment process.

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    Lecture1-Intro To Psychological Assessment

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    shamsuddin
    42 views32 pages
    The document provides an overview of psychological assessment and testing. It discusses key components of assessment including interviews, behavioral observations, and tests. It outlines the importance of psychological testing in areas like diagnosis, treatment planning, and job selection. The history and development of intelligence tests is reviewed. The concepts of standardization, reliability, validity, and test bias are explained as important considerations in evaluating psychological tests. Clinical judgement is also noted as part of the assessment process.

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    The document provides an overview of psychological assessment and testing. It discusses key components of assessment including interviews, behavioral observations, and tests. It outlines the importance of psychological testing in areas like diagnosis, treatment planning, and job selection. The history and development of intelligence tests is reviewed. The concepts of standardization, reliability, validity, and test bias are explained as important considerations in evaluating psychological tests. Clinical judgement is also noted as part of the assessment process.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    42 views32 pages

    Lecture1-Intro To Psychological Assessment

    Uploaded by

    shamsuddin
    The document provides an overview of psychological assessment and testing. It discusses key components of assessment including interviews, behavioral observations, and tests. It outlines the importance of psychological testing in areas like diagnosis, treatment planning, and job selection. The history and development of intelligence tests is reviewed. The concepts of standardization, reliability, validity, and test bias are explained as important considerations in evaluating psychological tests. Clinical judgement is also noted as part of the assessment process.

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    LECTURE 1

    INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGICAL
    ASSESSMENT
    Lecture Outline
    ¨ Introduction to Psychological Assessment
    ¨ Components of Psychological Assessment
    ¤ Interview
    ¤ Behavioral observation

    ¤ Psychological tests

    ¨ The importance of psychological testing


    ¤ Assessment process
    ¤ The uses of testing

    ¤ History of psychological testing

    ¤ Standardization, reliability & validity of tests

    ¨ Clinical judgement
    Introduction to Psychological
    Assessment
    ¨ A psychological assessment is the attempt of a
    skilled professional, usually a psychologist, to use
    the techniques and tools of psychology to learn
    either general or specific facts about another
    person, either to inform others of how they function
    now, or to predict their behavior and functioning in
    the future
    Introduction to Psychological
    Assessment
    ¨ Maloney and Ward (1976) offer that assessment
    ¤ Frequently uses tests
    ¤ Typically does not involved defined procedures or steps
    ¤ Contributes to some decision process to some problem, often
    by redefining the problem, breaking the problem down into
    smaller pieces, or highlighting some part(s) of the problem<
    ¤ Requires the examiner to consider, evaluate, and integrate
    the data
    ¤ Produces results that can not be evaluated solely on
    psychometric grounds
    ¤ Is less routine and inflexible, more individualized.
    Introduction to Psychological
    Assessment
    ¨ The point of assessment is often diagnosis or
    classification.
    ¨ These are the act of placing a person in a strictly or
    loosely defined category of people.
    ¨ This allows us to quickly understand what they are
    like in general, and to assess the presence of other
    relevant characteristics based upon people similar
    to them.
    Introduction to Psychological
    Assessment
    ¨ There are several parts to assessment.
    1. The interview
    2. Behavioural observation
    3. Testing
    The importance of psychological testing……
    7

    ¨ Real life examples from Gregory:


    ¤ “Three children in a family living near a lead smelter are
    exposed to the toxic effects of lead dust and suffer
    neurological damage. Psychological tests indicate impaired
    intelligence and attention and the family receives a $8
    million dollar settlement.”
    ¤ “A candidate with excellent qualifications for a police job is
    administered a personality test as part of the selection
    procedure. The test indicates that the candidate is impulsive
    and resists authority. In spite of his good CV, he is not
    offered the job.”
    Psychological Tests
    8

    ¨ Gregory:
    “A test is a standardized procedure for sampling
    behaviour and describing it with categories or scores”.
    ¤ Norms or standards
    ¤ Describe and predict behaviour

    ¨ Test results do not need to map directly to specific


    physical entities.
    ¤ E.g. IQ tests may be useful without there being such a
    thing in the brain as ‘IQ’.
    Assessment vs. Testing
    ¨ Assessment- comprehensive procedure for obtaining
    information in order to aid in decision making.
    ¨ Testing – Using formal, systematic procedures of
    measurement to obtain information.
    ¨ Test: set of tasks designed to elicit examinee behavior
    in a specified domain, or a system for collecting
    samples of an individual’s work in a particular area
    (Standards Psych Testing, APA)
    Assessment Process
    1. Review Referral Info 5. Interpret results
    2. Obtain Background, 6. Intervention
    Social, and Setting Strategies/Recomme
    Information ndation
    3. Hypothesis 7. Report
    Development 8. Communicate with
    4. Select & Administer Teacher/Parent
    Tests 9. Follow up
    The Uses of Testing
    11

    ¨ To make decisions about people


    ¤ Educational placement
    ¤ Job selection

    ¤ Diagnosis of neuropsychological deficits

    ¤ Planning of treatment and rehabilitation

    ¤ Sentencing of offenders.
    History of Psychological Testing
    12

    ¨ Chinese civil service testing


    ¨ James McKeen Cattell (1890):
    ¤ first to use term 'mental test'
    ¨ Late C19th:
    ¤ intellectual ability determined by speed of thought
    ¨ Identification of ‘Mental Retardation’
    ¤ Binet asked to develop tool to identify children who needed
    special instruction
    ¤ Binet’s intelligence tests: measured academic potential and
    knowledge
    Examples from 1905 Binet scale
    13

    5. Finds and eats a square of chocolate


    Increasing age/difficulty

    …….
    11. Repeats three spoken digits
    …….
    26. Puts ‘Paris, river, fortune’ into a sentence
    …….
    30. Defines difference between ‘boredom’ and
    ‘weariness’.
    Intelligence tests in the US
    14

    ¨ 1920s -1950s
    ¨ Terman: developed Stanford-Binet test
    IQ = mental age x 100
    chronological age
    ¤ Mean IQ = 100

    ¤ SD = 15
    Current intelligence tests
    15

    ¨ Developed from 1950s onwards

    Wechsler Intelligence Scales


    Raven’s Matrices
    16

    STANDARDISATION,
    VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY
    The boring but very important psychometric bit.
    MUST understand correlations.
    Standardisation
    17

    ¨ Interpreting raw scores


    ¤ Representative sample
    ¨ Percentile ranks
    n 50th percentile indicates middle of sample
    ¨ Raw score transformation
    n e.g.calculating IQ (Intelligence Quotient)
    n IQ = attained score for individual x100
    expected score for age group
    ¨ Norm group important
    Norms can become outdated:
    The Flynn effect
    18

    140
    IQ score on Raven's 130

    120
    Matrices

    110
    Data from Flynn
    (1987) on army 100
    conscripts from
    the Netherlands 90
    80
    1950 1962 1973 1985
    Date
    19

    RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY


    Can a test be trusted?
    Reliability
    20

    ¨ Reliability = degree of consistency in measurement


    ¨ Importance of reliability in courtroom testimony
    ¨ Sources of measurement error
    ¤ test administration
    n Gregory: evidence of examiner effects
    ¤ systematic measurement error
    ¤ test scoring
    Types of reliability
    21

    ¨ Reliability across time


    ¤ test-retest reliability
    ¤ alternate forms reliability

    ¨ Internal consistency
    ¤ split-half reliability
    ¤ Cronbach's coefficient Alpha

    ¤ interscorer reliability
    Test Validity
    22

    ¨ Does a test measures what it is supposed to?


    ¨ APA working party definition:
    “A test is valid to the extent that inferences made from it
    are appropriate, meaningful and useful.”
    Types of validity
    23

    1. Criterion validity:
    Do scores predict relevant variables?
    ¤ Diagnostic validity = concurrent state

    ¤ Prognostic validity = future behaviour

    2. Content validity:
    ¤ Does the test sample the correct domain?
    Types of validity
    24

    2. Face validity:
    ¤ Does the test look valid to users?
    3. Construct validity:
    ¤ What psychological qualities does a test measure?
    ¤ Convergent v discriminant validity
    25

    TEST BIAS
    Are tests fair?
    Test bias
    26

    ¨ Test bias:
    ¤ Scores have different implications when obtained from
    different subgroups of the population.
    ¨ Based on:
    ¤ Objective analysis of patterns of test scores for
    relevant populations
    ¤ Statistical evidence for different pattern of test validity
    in sub-populations
    Why test bias is controversial
    27

    ¨ Ethnic group differences in IQ score


    ¤ In US Asians outperform White Americans who
    outperform African Americans.
    ¤ When IQ tests used to make decisions about individuals
    bear group differences in mind.
    ¨ Differences likely due to:
    ¤ education, interests, stereotyping, wealth, language use
    etc.
    Bias in content validity
    28

    ¨ Bias in content of items in tests


    ¨ Most intelligence tests
    ¤ Highly language and culture dependent
    ¤ Biased against those educated in different countries

    ¨ IQ tests only unbiased IF


    ¤ Familiar with language and education system
    ¨ Expert judges cannot identify biased items
    Bias in criterion validity
    29

    ¨ Different predictive validity for different groups?


    ¤ Same prediction of college performance by IQ tests in
    different groups.
    ¨ Need good studies of correlations between tests
    and real world performance.
    ¤ Most neuropsychological tests no ethnic norms
    Test fairness
    30

    ¨ Test fairness
    ¤ Reflects social values in test usage
    ¤ Does it seem fair to society that a test is used in a
    certain way?
    ¨ Decision whether to use test information
    ¤ Ethical issue
    ¤ Legal implications.
    Summary
    31

    ¨ Psychological tests were developed to address


    important practical problems.
    ¨ Psychological tests are used to make decisions
    about individuals.
    ¨ To be useful tests must be:
    ¤ Properly interpreted in relation to norms
    ¤ Reliable (consistent) and valid (appropriate)

    ¤ Unbiased and fair


    Questions you should be able to address
    after this lecture
    32

    ¨ Why are reliability and validity important attributes


    of assessment techniques?
    ¨ What are the major uses of psychological tests?
    ¨ Why is a good standardisation sample important to
    allow interpretation of a test score?
    ¨ How can we decide whether intelligence tests are
    biased against particular social groups?

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