Post on 28-Mar-2015
Fundamentals of
Psychological Testing
PSYC 4500: Introduction to Clinical Psychology
Brett Deacon, Ph.D.
October 4, 2012
Announcements
• Exam #2 is Thursday, October 18th
• Schedule:
• Today: Fundamentals of testing
• Intellectual assessment
• Personality assessment I
• Personality assessment II
From Last Class
• Clinical interviewing (Chapter 6)
• Establishing rapport
• Verbal and nonverbal communication
strategies and pitfalls
• Listening skills
• Unstructured vs. semi-structured interviews
Basics of Assessment
• Basic characteristics of psychological tests and
how to evaluate them
• Detailed in Hunsley, Lee, & Wood (2003)
chapter
Psychological Testing
• What is a psychological test?
• “The measurement of a sample of behavior
obtained under standardized conditions and
that has established rules for scoring or
interpreting this sample.” (Anastasi, 1988)
When is a Test Really a Test?
• (1) A sample of behavior is collected in order to
generate statements about a person
• (2) A claim is made that these statements are
valid because of how they were collected (i.e.,
in a standardized manner, with established
rules for scoring, etc.), as opposed to the
assessor’s expertise alone
When is a Test Really a Test?
• Dr. A gives the Rorschach to a patient and
administers and interprets the test subjectively
using his clinical judgment.
• Dr. B gives the Rorschach to a patient and
administers, scores, and interprets the test
according to the published guidelines for the
Exner system.
Test Construction and Psychometric Principles
• Standardization
• Reliability
• Validity
• Norms
Test Construction and Psychometric Principles
• Standardization – proving detailed instructions
about administration, scoring, etc.
• Necessary to compare scores across
assessors and settings
• In the absence of standardization, a test has
no validity
Test Construction and Psychometric Principles
• Reliability – three types of consistency:
• (1) Internal consistency
• (2) Interrater reliability
• (3) Test-retest reliability
• Necessary but not sufficient for validity
Test Construction and Psychometric Principles
• Validity – does the test measure what it purports to measure?
• (1) Content validity
• (2) Concurrent and predictive validity
• (3) Discriminant validity
• (4) Incremental validity
Test Construction and Psychometric Principles
• Validity (continued)
• What if there are multiple scores and scales?
• What if it is used with different populations?
• What if there are multiple uses of a test?
Test Construction and Psychometric Principles
• A test is standardized, reliable, and valid
• But how do we know what a high or low score means?
• Norms – population-based scores for purposes of comparison
• Difficult, labor-intensive process to do properly
Test Construction and Psychometric Principles
• To evaluate the value of a psychological test,
we can examine that test’s standardization,
reliability, validity, and norms
The Brett Deacon Test of
Personality, Intelligence,
and Psychopathology
What Might This Be?
Scoring Criteria for Stimulus #1
• 1. Creativity (0-10; 0 = good, 10 = bad)
• 2. Absence of gross perceptual distortions (0-10; 0 = good, 10 = bad)
• 3. Response that seems indicative of psychopathology (0-10; 0 = good, 10 = bad)
• Score: _____
Make up a short story about this picture
Scoring Criteria for Stimulus #2
• 1. Creativity (0-10; 0 = good, 10 = bad)
• 2. Absence of gross perceptual distortions (0-10; 0 = good, 10 = bad)
• 3. Response that seems indicative of psychopathology (0-10; 0 = good, 10 = bad)
• Score: _____
Human Figure Drawing
• On a sheet of paper, draw a picture of yourself and a loved one.
Scoring Criteria for Stimulus #3
• 1. Response that seems indicative of psychopathology (0-30; 0 = good, 30 = bad) based on signs like line heaviness, big eyes, head size, and whether figures are touching.
• Score: _____
• Total Score: ______ (0-90)
Evaluating the Brett Deacon Test
• Standardization – administration, scoring?
• Reliability – internal consistency, inter-rater,
test-retest?
• Validity – content, concurrent/predictive,
incremental?
• Norms?
Most Commonly Used Tests
• Ball et al. (1994) - survey of 151 practicing clinical psychologists
• 1. Wechsler IQ Scales 2. Rorschach
• 3. TAT 4. MMPI
• 5. WRAT 6. BVMGT
• 7. Sentence Completion 8. Human Figure Drawings
• 9. House-Tree-Person 10. BDI
Most Commonly Used Tests
• Ball et al. (1994) - survey of 151 practicing clinical psychologists
• 1. Wechsler IQ Scales 2. Rorschach
• 3. TAT 4. MMPI
• 5. WRAT 6. BVMGT
• 7. Sentence Completion 8. Human Figure Drawings
• 9. House-Tree-Person 10. BDI
Projective Personality Assessment
• Projective vs. objective personality tests
• Characteristics of projective tests:
• 1. A person “projects” some part of themselves
onto an ambiguous stimulus
• 2. Methods are unstructured
• 3. Purpose is often disguised
Projective vs. Objective Assessment
• 4. Use a global approach to personality
• 5. Designed to measure unconscious elements
of the personality
• 6. Often interpreted from psychoanalytic
perspective
• 7. Often interpreted in idiographic manner (i.e.,
test taker is a “unique individual” vs. comparing test taker’s
responses to others’ responses from the normative sample)
Most Commonly Used Tests in *Child Custody Evaluations*
• Ackerman & Ackerman (1997) - survey of 201 psychologists from 39 states
• 1. Intelligence tests 2. TAT
• 3. Bricklin Perceptual Scales 4. Sentence Completion
• 5. Achievement Test 6. Rorschach
• 7. Projective Drawings 8. MMPI-A
• 9. House-Tree-Person 10. Kinetic Family Drawing
Hunsley et al. Response Paper Questions
• 1. Why do you think these tests are so commonly used by practicing psychologists?
• 2. Should these tests be taught to clinical psychology graduate students?
• 3. Is there sufficient justification for using the Rorschach, TAT, projective drawings, or anatomically detailed dolls in forensic settings?