Knowledge Check
Predictive Validity?
Predictive validity is a tool’s ability to predict future characteristics or behavior.
Mental Status Exam
Mental status exam: A set of interview questions and observations designed to reveal the degree and nature of a client’s psychological functioning.
What do depression items show?
Depression Items showing extreme pessimism and hopelessness (“I often feel hopeless about the future.”)
Drawing Test
Drawing test Drawing tests are commonly used to assess the functioning of children. One is the Kinetic Family Drawing test, in which children draw their household members performing some activity (“kinetic” means “active”).
Neuroimaging Techniques
Neuroimaging techniques: Neurological tests that provide images of brain structure or activity, such as CT scans, PET scans, and MRIs. Also called brain scans.
What is face validity?
face validity, does not by itself mean that the instrument is trustworthy.
Clinical Interview
A clinical interview is just such a face-to-face encounter
WHAT ARE THE MERITS OF PROJECTIVE TESTS?
Until the 1950s, projective tests were the most commonly used method for assessing personality. In recent years, however, clinicians and researchers have relied on them largely to gain “supplementary” insights
Projective Test
Projective test: A test consisting of ambiguous material that people interpret or respond to.
Neurological Test
Neurological test: A test that directly measures brain structure or activity.
What is assessment?
Assessment: The process of collecting and interpreting relevant information about a client or research participant.
Validity
Validity: The accuracy of a test’s or study’s results; that is, the extent to which the test or study actually measures or shows what it claims.
What do Hysteria items show?
Hysteria Items suggesting that the person may use physical or mental symptoms as a way of unconsciously avoiding conflicts and responsibilities (“My heart frequently pounds so hard I can feel it.”)
Response Inventories
Response inventories: Tests designed to measure a person’s responses in one specific area of functioning, such as affect, social skills, or cognitive processes.
Intelligence Test
Intelligence test: A test designed to measure a person’s intellectual ability.
Clinical assessment?
Clinical assessment is used to determine whether, how, and why a person is behaving abnormally and how that person may be helped.
Reliability
Reliability: A measure of the consistency of test or research results.
unstructured vs structured interviews?
Unstructured interviews typically appeal to psychodynamic and humanistic clinicians, while structured formats are widely used by behavioral and cognitive clinicians, who need to pinpoint behaviors, attitudes, or thinking processes that may underlie abnormal behavior.
Clinical Test
clinical test: A device for gathering information about a few aspects of a person’s psychological functioning from which broader information about the person can be inferred.
Psychophysiological Test
Psychophysiological test: A test that measures physical responses (such as heart rate and muscle tension) as possible indicators of psychological problems.
Concurrent Validity?
Concurrent validity is the degree to which the measures gathered from one tool agree with the measures gathered from other assessment techniques.
Standardize
standardize: The process in which a test is administered to a large group of people whose performance then serves as a standard or norm against which any individual’s score can be measured.
What do Hypochondriasis items show?
Hypochondriasis Items showing abnormal concern with bodily functions (“I have chest pains several times a week.”)
Personality Inventory
Personality inventory: A test designed to measure broad personality characteristics, consisting of statements about behaviors, beliefs, and feelings that people evaluate as either characteristic or uncharacteristic of them.
Intelligence Quotient
Intelligence quotient (IQ): A score derived from intelligence tests that theoretically represents a person’s overall intellectual capacity.