Psychological testing and assessment exam 2

The Cleary Model

- People with the same test scores should do equally well when related to some external criterion for different groups of people - Uses a sophisticated regression model - If the test is not biased, then, both black and white students' SAT scores should predict equally well their first-year college scores.

First step in developing an unbiased test

- Recognize your own biases and stereotypes - Recall that quote about throwing stones and living in glass houses? As a test designer, giver, or scorer, the more you know about your own biases and prejudices (and yes, we all have them), the fairer you can be and the more aware you will be of the impact your own beliefs have on your evaluations and assessments.

Who are likely to seek vocational counseling? Slide 11

- The upward extension was into the populations of business executives who had rarely used these services before, but now through economic imperatives (they were losing their jobs and had nowhere else to turn) they found themselves looking for work at times in their lives when they should have been planning for a financially successful retirement from the companies that they had spent their entire lives building. - The downward extension was into the poor and homeless socioeconomic classes who were being required to go to work because of new governmental policies like the Greater Avenues to Independence, the Job Training Partnership Act, Welfare to Work (1997), and Workforce Initiative Act (1998). The Welfare to Work Act (1997) was the harshest of these laws as it set a 5-year limit on any person in the United States receiving economic support through a federally administered economic support program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which replaced the federal program called Aid to Families with Dependent Children. The idea was to get those who have experienced or have characteristics associated with long-term welfare dependence into unsubsidized jobs, to get them in jobs first (called a work first service strategy), and then to train them postemployment. The role of career counseling and development professionals was to assist in this process where they could, a process that varied from state to state and from local agency to local agency. - The outward extension was brought about through renewed interest and support for career development through the policies of the federal government. Not since the 1960s had so many important laws affecting American citizens' career development been passed. Beginning with President George H. W. Bush and carrying over to President Bill Clinton, there was a resurgence in interest in the lifelong career development of the American populace, as shown in such federal legislation as the School-to-Work Opportunities Act (1994), One-Stop Career Centers Act (1994), and Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), along with the reauthorization of the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act Amendments of 1998 (formerly titled the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act), the Higher Education Act, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The role of organized career counseling and development professionals and federal agencies working together through the NCDA, American Vocational Association (AVA; now Association for Career and Technical Education), NOICC and State OICCs, and American School Counselor Association was pivotal to the final legislation authorizing the School-to-Work Opportunities Act. This legislation began a revolution in the process of schooling in the United States by refocusing the nation's educational resources on the very real, difficult, but underattended transition that all students must make from schooling to jobs. Finally, an inward development was that specialties within the field of career counseling began to be developed by career counseling private practitioners. Such specialties included multicultural populations (African Americans, Asian Americans, gays and lesbians, people with disabilities), attorneys, senior executives, and spousal and international relocation to name but a few. Such increasing specialization is the result of the maturing of a profession.

TAT- Thematic Apperception Test

- Thematic Apperception Test - It is made up of a series of pictures that show characters in a variety of ambiguous situations. Examinees are instructed to make up an oral story about each picture. The rationale underlying the TAT is that the stories told by examinees in their search for some meaning in the ambiguous pictures represent projections of the examinees' past experiences and present needs. Thus, somewhat similar to the Rorschach, the test uses ambiguous stimuli to elicit samples of the ways the examinee organizes the world. Unlike the Rorschach, the TAT makes use of a sample of specifically focused instructions that are repetitive across picture stimuli. Thus the examiner can elicit samples of similar or "thematic" situations by selecting particular subsets of cards to present. The examiner follows an interpretive strategy that focuses on the characters and settings in the stories told by the examinee, as they are likely to reflect the examinee's placement of self into them. The protocol data thus elicited are presumed to provide a representation of personality content and character structure.

Projective techniques

- A standard series of ambiguous stimuli designed to elicit unique responses that reveal inner aspects of an individual's personality - Designed to encourage people to project their personality characteristics onto ambiguous stimuli - Projective drawing techniques used in the assessment of psychopathology are generally one of two types, Draw-A-Person or Draw-A-House. In both, clients are asked to draw freehand one or more pictures of themselves, significant others, their family, their home, or a similar object. The basic premise is to provide an environment that elicits information about a person's feelings about the targeted stimuli (e.g., self, family member). The examinee is thought to project his or her own perceptions of these targeted stimuli onto the drawings. Assessment relies on an accurate interpretation of the elements of the drawings as they relate to the client's thoughts and feelings. Artistic talent is irrelevant. Rather, it is the configuration and style of the elements that is evaluated. For example, poor drawing symmetry may be reflective of insecurity or inadequacy, low levels of detail may be suggestive of withdrawal or depression, and large head size may be suggestive of expansiveness and aggression.

Factor Analysis

- A technique for examining relationships among variables - Factor analysis is a technique for looking at relationships between variables and helping identify which of those variables relate to one another. And if some variables do relate to one another more than to other variables in the set, we might call this group of variables a factor. - The strategy for developing a test based on factor analysis is to administer a whole bunch of tasks—which may be structured or projective—and then correlate scores on one task with all other tasks. - Next, you look for similarities about sets of tasks and give them a factor name, such as shyness or confidence. - The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (also known as the 16PF) is one such test developed by Raymond Catell. After the collection of many items, administration, and factor analysis, the following 16 factors (on all of which people can and do differ) form the structure of the test. - Set of variables that are related are called a Factor Example: If you found that Variables 1, 3, and 6 in a set of 10 are related to one another, and then examined them closely for what they measure (Variable 1 measures reading comprehension, 3 measures reading fluency, and 6 measures reading strategies), we might collectively call this a factor and name it reading ability. When we use factor analysis, we look for patterns of commonality.

NEO 4

- Also constructed based on factor analysis - Five-Domain Model (The Big Five) - Neuroticism - tendency to experience negative emotions (sadness, anxiety) and frequent mood swings. - Extraversion - outgoing, excitement seeking - Openness - flexible, curious and seeking novelty - Agreeableness - trusting, kind, cooperative - Conscientiousness - competency, dutifulness, efficient and organized. Example: 17. I often crave excitement. 50. I have an active fantasy life. 127. Sometimes I trick people into doing what I want.

What is a personality?

- An individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting - The combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual's distinctive character.

Behavioral Assessment Tools

- Basic Tenet - All Behavior is learned, including pathological behavior. - Some of this learning occurs as a result of stimulus-response relationships that are learned over time within a particular environmental context. - Other behaviors are learned vicariously - observing other - Behavioral assessment of psychopathology focuses on : - Describing problem behaviors that make up psychopathology - Quantitative approach - focus is on the size, strength and number of problem variables assessed. - Acquiring reliable and valid data points. - However, data are restricted to directly observable or at least verbally describable phenomena that can be quantified. uBehavioral interviewing is a primary tool of behavioral assessment

BDI - II

- Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) - BDI (BDI-II) is a 21-item self-rating scale consisting of items that cover a broad range of depression-related symptoms. Like most behavioral checklists, it takes only a few minutes to complete and because the responses represent examinees' ratings of specific behaviors, it provides a description of the kinds of symptoms a client reports. The BDI and other checklists can be summed up for comparison to different populations, and thus it gives an indication of the severity of depressive symptoms. The BAI is a similar tool that assesses the presence and severity of specific symptoms of anxiety. - Total Score (severity) - Cut Scores (level of depression) - Factor Scores (Type of depression) - Individual items (specific clinical issues) - Special attention - Items 16 (appetite) and 18 (sleep) - Items 2 (hopelessness) and 9 (suicidal thoughts) - any "2" or "3" responses will be considered high risk. - Extreme responses - All "0" - possible minimizing or denying problems - All "3" - possible maximizing or exaggerating problems. - Some clients show dichotomous thinking (think in extremes such as something is really good or really bad) - this can cause extreme responses. - Maybe a distorted reflection of the self (not really a dishonest reflection) which is a characteristic of depression causing cognitive impairment.

False negatives

- Can be dangerous. For example: a depressed or suicidal person could be missed. Missed opportunity to treat someone who needs help.

The different personality trait theories

- Enduring quality, for example: shy or outgoing - Traits are objective behavior - It doesn't necessarily conclude whether a trait is good or bad. Personality Trait Theories: - Gordon Allport, Raymond Cattell

Unstructured interviews - examples

- Essentially a data-gathering process in which information is most often collected face-to-face with a client through an interactive series of questions and answers that can vary greatly from client to client. - Questioning follows a format beginning with open-ended questions that can provide information about the content provided, but also about the process the client uses to respond. - Questions gradually become more and more close ended during the interview to help fill in needed specific information about the client. - The unstructured interview is also used to obtain information from other sources, such as family members or others who can comment on the client's actions. This is called Collateral information.

Difference-difference bias

- Examine group differences - This model says that if two groups differ on some factor obviously unrelated to the test, such as race, gender, racial or ethnic group membership, or political affiliation (you get the idea), then the test is biased. - But, there is a problem with this model. What is it? Example: Difference in achievement test scores between two different racial groups. Now, maybe these two groups got different training, their teachers had different expectations, and so on. So the differences do not reflect a bias in the test or the trait or characteristics of ability being measured, but, rather, they reflect the circumstances under which these children were educated or raised, or a set of different expectations - So differences in performance are useful to note, and it's even more useful to find out the source of these differences. But claiming that a difference in performance is the result of a test's bias (not knowing that the test is biased) has no more basis in fact than claiming that the groups were differentially prepared to take the test. This is not easy stuff, especially when we recognize that testing and assessment are a multibillion-dollar industry that affects almost everyone in one way or another.

Goal of vocational assessment/ what o they do?

- Examine people's interests and what would provide individuals with a high level of job and life satisfaction - Combine test results with a variety of other factors including: - Personality - Values - Desires

Behavioral Interviewing

- Focus on operationally defining problem behaviors - Elucidate the relationship between those behaviors and precipitating events (antecedents) and resultant consequences - Since the goal is to change the problem behaviors, the focus tends to be on the more immediate antecedents and consequences of problem behaviors. - Less attention is given to obtaining detailed historical information about life events such as childhood experiences. - Emphasizes on the direct observation of problems and utilizing a behavioral assessment check list. - Behavioral checklists are tools that assist in quantifying specific behaviors. They are typically short, specific to particular disorders, and easy to complete. - Behavioral checklists are most often completed by clients but can be used in a question-and-answer format by an examiner. Extremely helpful for gathering self-reported symptom information that can be compared to a normative distribution.

Forensic assessment

- Forensic assessment takes into account a very wide and diverse set of tasks and topics. For example, here's a partial list of what a forensic assessment expert might deal with in the course of his or her daily work: - Assessing the status of an individual to determine if he or she is competent to participate in his or her own defense in a criminal trial - Creating a written agreement with the court on the purpose and scope of testing to take place - Assisting the court in deciding whether a claim (such as the result of injury from an accident) is valid - Educating members of the court and legal system, including attorneys, judges, and police officers, as to the conditions under which individuals might need therapeutic help - Evaluating an individual who is being considered for institutionalization - Examining the circumstances surrounding child custody issues and making recommendations to the court - The Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology Center can perform the following types of forensic evaluations: Emotional Injury Fitness to Stand Trial Insanity Defense Guilty But Mentally Ill Sentencing (Mitigation, Diminished Capacity, Volitional arm defense) Competency to Confess Sex Offender Evaluation, etc.

Talk deficit

- George Farkas's research shows that parents' verbal interactions with their preschool children account for much of the early test score differences between children of different social class and racial backgrounds. - He contends that to reduce this gap, increased verbal interaction between parents and children has to begin very early and be addressed consistently. He bases his thesis on the premise that higher test scores are associated with greater verbal skills and that the more parents verbally interact with their children, the better the children's verbal skills and the higher their test scores

Trait theory - Gordon Allport

- Gordon Allport proposed that an individual's conscious motives and traits better describe their personality than does the person's unconscious motivation. He defined three types of traits: - Cardinal traits - How you approach life and the world. Eg: being punctual. - Central traits - traits that are found in everyone to certain extent. Eg: honesty, agreeableness, jealousy etc. - Secondary traits - This is situational dependent. You can be a nice person to someone you like and a rude person to someone you dislike. Eg: attitudes or preferences

Criterion group example

- Group of test takers who differ on the personality characteristic you want to study - This methods wants to find the best method for discriminating between the two groups Example: We are interested in developing a set of personality items that taps into whether people are deeply religious—perhaps a test of degree of religious faith. How do we create a test like that? - The use of a criterion group is even more interesting. Here, the test developer looks for a group of potential test takers that differs from another group of potential test takers. And on what do they differ? Those personality traits and characteristics that are being studied! - This is a process of discriminating between different sets of people who have already recognized that they belong to a certain group of people who may behave or work in a particular fashion or may even be in a particular occupation.

Projective personality tests

- Have ambiguous or unclear stimuli, and the test taker is asked to interpret or impose onto these stimuli his or her own meaning. The most common example of this is the Rorschach inkblot test - Ambiguous, unclear questions - Test taker is asked to interpret or impose his or her own meaning to these events Example: Rorschach Ink Blot test - The idea behind projective tests is that individuals can impose their own sense of structure on an unstructured event—the inkblot—and in doing so, they reveal important information about their view of the world and the characteristics that are associated with that view. Obviously, the inkblot is not a very structured stimulus, and such tests take a great deal of education and practice to interpret adequately.

Objective personality tests

- Have very clear and unambiguous questions, stimuli, or techniques for measuring personality traits. For example, a structured item might be when a test taker is asked to respond yes or no to the statement - Clear and unambiguous questions, stimuli, or techniques for measuring personality traits - Items leave no doubt as to how the test taker should respond "I get along with others" Test takers are asked to respond yes or no to the statement " I usually prefer to do things alone" - The test taker indicates whether he or she strongly agrees, agrees, is neutral, disagrees, or strongly disagrees with the item.

Chitling test of intelligence - Dove Counterbalance General

- Here's an attempt to highlight the issue of test bias and to point out how challenging it actually is to complete test items when they are drawn from another culture. The Chitling Test of Intelligence (originally known as the Dove Counterbalance General Intelligence Test) uses black-ghetto experiences as the basis for a test and tries to show the cultural bias found in many IQ tests. This test was designed by Adrian Dove, a black sociologist, and shows exactly how dangerous it is to assume that the majority culture has ownership of what is "intelligent." Take a look at two of the 30 items, shown here: A "handkerchief head" is: (a) a cool cat, (b) a porter, (c) an Uncle Tom, (d) a hoddi, (e) a preacher. - Many people say that "Juneteenth" (June 19) should be made a legal holiday because this was the day when: (a)the slaves were freed in the USA, (b)(b) the slaves were freed in Texas, (c)(c) the slaves were freed in Jamaica, (d) (d) the slaves were freed in California, (e)(e) Martin Luther King was born, (f)(f) Booker T. Washington died.

Holland's occupational codes

- Holland (and his coauthors) compiled a dictionary of these codes, the Dictionary of Occupational Codes, with close to 13,000 occupations, from helicopter pilots (RIS) to blood donor recruiters (ESC) represented. Here's just a sample of the selection of codes and the accompanying and suggested occupations. -

Clinical Judgement

- It's an interpretation or conclusion about a patient's needs, concerns. uIn order to gain an accurate interpretation, psychologist needs to gather all the assessment information described before. - Most psychologists make their own decisions regarding the accuracy, impact, relative weight, and usefulness of the information they gather, but the ability of clinicians to do this has been a point of controversy. - Clinical reasoning - Critical thinking - Number of clinical biases that lessen the accuracy of an assessment of psychopathology. These include: - Hindsight bias, or the tendency once something is known to believe that the outcome could have been more easily predicted than is the actual case. - Confirmatory bias is the tendency to look for evidence supporting one's early hypotheses while tending to overlook evidence that would be contrary to those hypotheses. - Over-reliance on salient data often attributable to the assessment process. This occurs when one pays greater attention to information that appears more "impressive" and ignoring less dramatic information. - The underutilization of base rates - Base rates (i.e., the prevalence or frequency with which an event occurs in the population) provide important information about the likelihood of observing a given disorder, but psychologists often ignore base rate data. - Failure to analyze covariation - The likelihood that an observed relationship (e.g., an increase in depressive features and a new marriage) could be influenced by an additional factor (e.g., a job change). - Finally, the cognitive limitations inherent in all persons, (e.g., limited working memory capacity, limits in complex processing, and inaccuracies of information manipulation) also limit the ability of psychologists to make accurate predictions from assessment data. -

Face validity bias

- Judges examine content of test - This type of validity judges the face value of particular items and usually uses an expert judge to make a determination. It can be the same with test items where biased items misrepresent ethnic groups, age-groups, and gender characteristics. Example: A set of pictorial items that uses only white people as examples? That has nothing to do with the test items per se, but it sure sends a message that nonwhite test takers don't exactly identify with the folks in the illustrations. Or what about the use of stereotyped language, such as reading comprehension passages that characterize men in certain occupations and women in others?

Frank Parson's three broad factors in choice of occupation

- Knowledge of self - Knowledge of the requirements for success in different occupations - matching these two groups of facts - Self-assessment became an important part in psychological testing

MMPI 2

- Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory - The MMPI-2 was originally designed as a diagnostic tool to identify specific DSM disorders. However, the findings from more than six decades of research on the instrument have expanded its use to include multiple behavioral and symptom correlates based on patterns of responding across its many subscales. In brief, the MMPI-2 consists of 557 true/false items that are scored to yield scores on 10 primary clinical scales. These primary scales retain their original labels (e.g., Hypochondriasis, Depression, Hysteria, Psychopathic Deviate), however, they are no longer interpreted as stand-alone scales but as reflective of a pattern of symptoms and behaviors shared by common groups - The MMPI-2 also contains several "validity" indexes, including the K (Correction) scale and the L (Lie) scale, and a host of content-based and supplementary scales. Content-based scales are those that have been composed of items that, at face value, appear to represent domains of similar content. Examples include scales of Anxiety, Obsessiveness, Social Discomfort, and Family Problems. Supplementary scales are those that have been created by combining items, usually based on statistical rationales, to represent an area of clinical interest. Examples of supplemental scales include Repression, Ego Strength, Marital Distress, and Gender Role Identification. - Current interpretation strategies usually revolve around pattern analysis of scale elevations. Specific sets of scale score patterns are then associated with likely behavioral response patterns that have been seen in others with similar patterns. These symptom sets are then used to determine the fit of the examinee to specific diagnostic criteria. For example, people who obtain high scores on both Clinical Scale 2 (Depression) and Clinical Scale 9 (Introversion) have been shown to often be ruminative, worried about achievement, and self-centered. They often report feeling tense and anxious, and may engage in episodes alternating between excessive activity and apathy. They are sometimes diagnosed with depression or bipolar disorder.

Consequential validity

- Need to be concerned with how tests are used and how their results are interpreted - Also need to think about the consequences of that interpretation - We need to be concerned about how tests are used and how their results are interpreted. We worry about construct validity and whether a test does what it is supposed to do, but we often forget about why we are using a test in the first place, the importance of how we interpret scores, and the consequences of this or that interpretation. And in these coming years of more reliance on test scores as a tool for assessing teaching effectiveness, now more than ever is the time to consider such a question (and answer).

False positives

- Not as bad. For example: non-depressed person will just get further evaluation or maybe even treatment

Holand Self-Direct Search (SDS)

- Notice the six themes are arranged in a very unique manner on the hexagon - Adjacent themes are similar - Opposite themes are dissimilar - Also important to note, the SDS is... - Self-administered - Self-scored - Self-interpreted

Objective reports - what are they?

- Objective self-report inventories have been widely used for close to 70 years and continue to enjoy great popularity. - Two of the most commonly used measures are the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI).

Item by item bias

- Performance on each item examined - Instead of looking at overall group performance, perhaps an analysis should be done on an item-by-item basis, where group performance is examined for each item and any discrepancies studied further (sounds a lot like item response theory). Example: If students from different groups, say, males and females, perform differently on an item that requires thinking at the synthesis level (remember Bloom's taxonomy?), then perhaps that item is biased

Rorschach

- Rorschach Inkblot test is a 10-plate set of bisymmetrical inkblots. By their nature, the inkblots provide an ambiguous set of stimuli to the client. For each individual plate, the clients are simply asked to tell the assessor what the inkblots remind them of. Thus, without further instruction, clients are placed in a position that necessitates the use of their own personal perceptual experiences to place an organizational structure and context onto these otherwise ambiguous stimuli. In this way, the organization of the material becomes a behavioral example of the way clients approach and organize the world with which they interact. - The Rorschach has been used extensively and many categories of response type have been developed, particularly regarding the determinants of what goes into individual percepts. These include the use of form, color, symmetry, and even textural cues. The core elements needed to interpret any Rorschach response are what the response is, where it is located, and why or what makes it look that way. The interpretation of these elements as they represent organizational strategies and methods has been used to provide information about people's interpersonal style, motivation, emotional processes, and even their cognitive abilities. While controversial because of arguments regarding its reliability and validity, the Rorschach is still commonly used by many clinicians. Effective use of the Rorschach requires extensive training in its administration and, in particular, in the interpretation of responses to the Rorschach materials.

Strong Interest Inventory - know the examples and description on slide 13

- Strong (1928) created the Strong Vocational Interest Blank (SVIB) in his work trying to place military people in suitable jobs - Now known as the Strong Interest Inventory (SII) - Asked individuals what they liked/disliked about: Various occupations Areas of study Personality types Leisure activities - Compared responses to the responses of individuals in certain vocational roles - Has 291 items that align on 30 basic interest scales organized into six different sections - Edward Strong was very clever in his design and development of the original SVIB in 1928, and it all started with his work in trying to place military people in suitable jobs. He thought that to get a good reflection of one's vocational interests, questions should be asked about how much the test taker likes or dislikes various occupations, areas of study, personality types, and leisure time activities. Then he found out how people who are currently in certain occupational positions would have answered these very same questions. By empirically keying those answers (from folks already working) with the responses of the test takers (the folks who may work in this or that field), he could pretty well look for a fit between people and occupations. Is it perfect? No. Does it work pretty well? Yes. Strong's early work is based on the assumption that the most successful people in an occupation have a certain profile of characteristics that reflects what it takes to be successful. If a test taker identifies with that profile, the likelihood is better than average that he or she will succeed in that profession as well. Last revised in 2012, the current edition of the SII consists of 291 items that align on 30 basic interest scales organized into six different sections. The first five sections of the test ask test takers to indicate whether they like, dislike, or are indifferent to certain topics, occupations, or people characteristics. So this part of the test might look something like this: - •Realistic. These people prefer activities that are practical and hands-on and that result in tangible results, such as building, repairing, or fixing. Example vocations could be carpenter, roofer, builder, and carpet installer. •Investigative. These people prefer to solve problems that involve science and engineering, and they enjoy challenging situations that demand intellectual activity. Example vocations could be chemist, biologist, engineer, and forensic scientist. •Artistic. These people prefer activities that include the self-expression of ideas. Examples could include a musician or a filmmaker and activities such as creating or enjoying art. •Social. These people like to help others and find themselves attracted to situations where social causes are important. Example vocations could include teachers, social workers, and psychologists. •Enterprising. These people prefer activities that include self-management and leadership, in addition to selling. Example vocations could be sales, management, and advertising. •Conventional. These people like activities where structure and order are a part of the work world. Example vocations could include data analysis, secretaries, and accountants. - Once the test is scored, a long and detailed printout of the test taker's score and profile are available. Scores are assigned to each of six general occupational themes, and these themes have kept up with the times; so the latest revision includes many more items that reflect technology and changes in the business world. - The results of the test identify the most prominent of the six different areas, some of the suggested professions in that area, and the knowledge and skills required, as well as the tasks relevant to these occupations.

Test Bias vs. Test Fairness

- Test fairness = use of tests and the social values that underlie usage - Test bias = result of statistical analyses that will help ensure the validity of a test - Tests need to be both fair and unbiased - Test fairness touches on the very sensitive issue of the use of tests and the social values that underlie such use. Whereas test bias is the result of an analysis that any of us can learn to apply, fairness is a question of values and judgment—both topics that most of us have to think long and hard about until we think we are doing the right thing. In other words, just because the test you use can distinguish between adults who are "smart" and those who are "not so smart" (and do it in an unbiased manner) does not mean that the judgments made based on these results provide a valid basis for placing people in different social categories or imposing interventions and all the implications that result, such as employment and social opportunities and so on. For that matter, when should these constructs be tested and for what purpose

Principles of Fair Test Movt.

- Tests should be used appropriately - Safeguards must be established to ensure that standardized test scores are not the sole criterion by which major educational decisions are made and that curricula are not driven by standardized testing. - Evaluation of students and schools should consist of multiple types of assessment conducted over time - No one measure can or should define a person's knowledge, worth, or academic achievement, nor can it provide for an adequate evaluation of an institution. - Alternative assessments should be used - Methods of evaluation that fairly and accurately diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of students and programs need to be designed and implemented with sufficient professional development for educators to use them well.

Perkin's Vocational Education Act

- The Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act became law in 1984. This replaced the Vocational Education Act of 1963, which had been amended in 1968 and 1976, and extended federal authorization for vocational education programs through 1989. - It was notable for strengthening programs for underserved populations, listed as "disadvantaged individuals, handicapped individuals, adults requiring training/ retraining, Indians, limited English-proficient students, participants in programs to eliminate sex bias in vocational education, native Hawaiians, single parents/ homemakers, criminal offenders, and unemployed or workers threatened by unemployment." - The Perkins Act has been amended continuously by the federal government, but even today continues to be the vehicle for career guidance authorization in the schools.

Example of content and theory

- Theory helps in the prediction of behaviors that certain personality types (e.g., risk takers) engage in - Woodworth Personal Data Sheet - - One of the earliest forms of objective personality test - Woodworth went around and talked with psychiatrists about what they saw in their practice as he also consulted lots and lots of literature on symptoms of neuroses. He then created items from the long list of comments he got and information he gleaned from what others had written. - Example: You want to develop a test that measures someone's willingness to take risks as a personality characteristic. - The theory says that people with certain personality traits would rather do one than the other, we have some idea of what type of content can assess what types of traits. - We would ask people if they agreed or disagreed with each item. - The more items that the test taker agreed with, the more evidence that trait or characteristic is present. - we could also ask experts on this particular trait (risk taking) and see if the item fairly assessed the trait. (remember content validity?) - In particular, theories (and all the literature on this topic) of risk-taking lead us to believe that we can predict what kinds of behaviors risk-takers will exhibit. We can then formulate a set of questions that allows us to take an inventory of one's willingness to take risks through simple self-report questions such as I would rather climb a mountain than play a noncompetitive sport. or I like to spend most of my spare time at home relaxing.

Structured Interview - examples

- Use a specific set of questions to obtain information that is directly related to a set of criteria of particular interest. - reduce the elements of clinical judgment inherent in unstructured interviews - permit the generation of "objective" ratings. - allows comparisons between cases on essentially the same information. - having objective ratings allows psychometric testing of the interview itself in terms of assessing the interview's reliability and validity.

Adaptive testing AKA Computer Adaptive Testing (CAT)

-Adaptive testing AKA Computer Adaptive Testing (CAT) - Adjusts the difficulty of items based on the test taker's ongoing performance - Items are selected based on whether or not they got the previous items wrong or right. - This fits very closely with the idea of item response theory and most closely reveals the test taker's true ability. - HOW DOES CAT WORK? - First, all the test items are evaluated to determine which one is the best next one, given the test taker's performance up to that point. - Second, the best next item is administered. - Third, the computer program estimates a new ability level based on the test taker's responses to all the administered items. - The goal: to get as close as possible to the test taker's true score, thereby producing more reliable (and more valid) assessments.

Forensic Psychology

Forensic psychology is a branch of psychology that explores the intersection of neuropsychology and the justice system (and much of it revolves around testing in the area of neuropsychological assessment, as discussed earlier in this chapter). Once again, the focus is on the brain and behavior, but the circumstances and the setting are different.' - is the assessment of this relationship and is used to examine important variables in everything from understanding the role of expert testimony to the declaration of someone not being competent to stand trial to child custody issues. And in particular (and particularly relevant to this chapter), forensic neuropsychologists (sometimes called rehabilitative psychologists, who also depend a great deal on measures of personality and brain function) often appear as expert witnesses in court to discuss cases that involve brain damage.

NDEA

National Defense Education Act - Counselors were hired to identify and encourage science and math majors for college education.

Trait theory - Raymond Cattell - 16 basic factors (16 PF)

Raymond Cattell - By means of a statistical technique called factor analysis, organized the huge number of words used generally to describe personality (over 17,000) and reduced them to 16 basic factors. Some of them are: - Emotional, easily upset vs. calm, stable - Suspicious vs. trusting - Reserved vs. outgoing - Tender minded vs. tough minded - Shrewd vs. forthright - Self-assured vs. apprehensive - Conservative vs. experimenting

Richard Nelson Boles - Counseling 101

Richard Nelson Boles wrote about five rules about taking any type of vocational test •Not all tests are right for all people •No test is THE test for everyone •Trust your intuition •There's no one like you •Remember ... it is only a score - First, not all tests are right for all people. Some people hate tests altogether. So the test itself has to be the kind in which the test taker is willing to invest the time and energy for the results to be useful. Second, no test is the test for everyone. Some tests, because the format is better liked, perhaps, may provide different results than other tests (even when the same person takes both tests). It's a matter of everything, including the type of test, the items, the format, and more. Career development isn't so finite a process that one test, no matter how good it is, will provide all the answers. So should you take more than one vocational test? Sure—if you have the time and money, what could it hurt? Third, Bolles believes what the great psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud said as well: When it comes to important decisions, trust your emotions. In Bolles's case, he says to trust your intuition. No test will provide a definitive direction in which to go—only suggestions that you can incorporate into your own wishes, desires, and life circumstances. Fourth, you're the (only) one, and there's no one like you. So when it comes to test scores, you may not be the only one to get that score, but that's the only score you get. Treat your unique qualities as important factors in consideration of the test profile that results from the testing. Finally, test is only a score. There's a lot more to deciding on a career path or choosing one track over another than one score. The more you know about yourself, the more useful the test outcomes will be.

Ecological Validity

The extent to which a study is realistic or representative of real life. - Ecological validity pertains to how well the information gathered truly assesses what is important to the client's functioning in the "real" world. Information is more likely to be individualized and specific to the client during an unstructured, and thus unhampered, interview. Disadvantages can include the potential for uneven and incomplete collection of necessary information by the clinician, as for example when a psychologist spends a great deal of time evaluating reports of depression and fails to fully assess other issues, such as anxiety.

Forensic assessment vs Therapeutic assessment

The first differences has to do with the purposes of each of them, while the primary purpose of forensic assessment as mentioned before is to provide the legal decision-maker by information about an individual's relevant capacities underlying the specific civil (e.g., child custody, personal injury) or criminal (e.g., competence to stand trial, sanity at the time of the offense) legal question. Therapeutic evaluation, by contrast, is usually conducted for diagnosis and treatment reason - The second difference between the two types of assessments concerns with the nature of the examiner-examinee relationship. In forensic assessment, the psychologist or the psychiatrist plays an objective role or quasi- objective role in data collection and documentation, he or she concerns with objectivity and accuracy. While the role of the psychologist or the psychiatrist in therapeutic assessment is a helping role, he or she concerns with the person being evaluated - The standards used in forensic and therapeutic assessment are different. - Standards in therapeutic assessment help in diagnosis and treatment, and serve organizing, condensing, and orienting functions. While the forensic assessment include both clinical and legal standards. For example, when the evaluator is asked to consider the relation between the underlying mental, emotional, and cognitive deficits and a variety of legal issues, such as sentencing considerations, competencies, or criminal responsibility

Two social conditions characterized the post world war II period

Two social conditions characterized the post-World War II period that led to the rise of the professional practice of career counseling: (1)the personal and career problems of veterans, especially those who were disabled during the war; (2)the influx of new types of students to higher education (generally older, nontraditional) as a result of the GI Bill of Rights.

Intelligence Test

a method for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores -

Structured Assessment

an examination of a persons cognitive behavioral or emotion functioning to diagnose possible psych disorders -

Test Bias

is when a test differentially favors one group over another. But test fairness is another story, one that we should introduce to you as well. - Test bias occurs when test scores vary across groups because of factors that are unrelated to the purpose of the test. - Example: If there are systematic differences in test scores as a function of gender - Test Bias is when a test differentially favors one group over another. But test fairness is another story, one that we should introduce to you as well.

Rorschach and TAT

projective tests - The test taker is shown black-and-white pictures of "classical human situations" (there are 31 of them, with one card being blank). The cards are gendered and only 10 out of 31 are shown to the test taker. - The test taker is asked to describe the events that led up to the scene in the picture, what is going on, and what will happen next. Test takers are also encouraged to talk about the people in the pictures and what they might be experiencing. - Rorschach Ink Blot test - The idea behind projective tests is that individuals can impose their own sense of structure on an unstructured event—the inkblot—and in doing so, they reveal important information about their view of the world and the characteristics that are associated with that view. Obviously, the inkblot is not a very structured stimulus, and such tests take a great deal of education and practice to interpret adequately.

Unstructured assessment

when they follow questions from the DSM criteria instead of their own beliefs -