Exam 2 (chapters 3, 4, 5)
Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment
- (ASEBA; Achenbach, 2002). The ASEBA is a family of empirically derived assessment tools to measure competence(abilities) and problems (internalizing and externalizing) across the lifespan.
Gary Groth-Marnat
- (Groth-Marnat & Wright, 2016), who has authored some of the most commonly used resources for teaching psychological assessment, nicely captured what is required of a clinical psychologist when conducting an assessment:
Projective Measures
- A technique, such as a storytelling task, may be used to assess the underlying needs or motives of a research participant.
Standardization
- Consistency across clinicians and testing occasions in the procedure used to administer and score a test - without standardization, test results are likely to be highly specific to the unique aspects of the testing situation and are unlikely to provide data that can be generalized to testing by another psychologist, let alone to other situations in the person's life
What design is probably the most commonly used in clinical psychology?
- Correlational Designs
Approximately how many Canadian adults have a mental disorder?
- One quarter
evidence of predictive validity
- The extent to which the test predicts a relevant outcome
Reliability
- refers to the consistency of the test
Polythetic
- relating to or sharing a number of characteristics - to fix the issues around the polythetic approach to diagnosis they have created subtypes within a diagnosis
Research sample
- researchers make decisions about how to obtain data from a subset of the population of interest - strategies used to recruit people can affect the validity and generalizability of a study
Correlational designs
- the examination of association among variables - can never determine causality
internal consistency
- the extent to which all aspects of a test contribute in a similar way to the overall score.
Three categories of test norms:
1.) percentile ranks 2.) standard scores 3.) developmental norms
Research Domain Criteria (RDoC)
Is designed to integrate data from multiple levels (e.g., biochemical, cognitive, self-report) to advance research on mental disorders.
Prototype Model
Members of a diagnostic category may differ in degree to which they represent the concepts underlying the category - implies that not all people receiving the same diagnosis have exactly the same set of symptoms
Classification Validity
The extent to which the principles used in classifying an entity(a thing) are effective in capturing the nature of the entity (a thing)
two key aspects of the adequacy of classification systems are...
validity and utility
Thematic Apperception Test
- (a storytelling test in which respondents provide stories to pictures presented by the clinician) is frequently used by some psychologists. However, despite this test being clinically available for many decades, there is no consensus among clinicians on how to administer, score, and interpret client responses to pictures (Teglasi, 2010).
Thomas Achenbach
- A child psychopathology reasearcher that gathered information about children's difficulties from multiple informants and then used factor analysis to identify the symptoms that tend to co-occur - Achenbach's work yielded two broad dimensions(aspects) of problems: externalizing problems and internalizing problems - Externalizing problems are acting-out behaviours such as yelling, destroying things, stealing, and showing aggression - Internalizing problems refer to feelings of sadness, worry, and withdrawn behaviour - Using a dimensional approach, a psychologist can describe a child's functioning according to the intensity of externalizing and internalizing problems
Structural Equation modelling
- A comprehensive(deals w/ all elements) statistical procedure that involved testing all components of a theoretical model - correlational design - For example, the model may be one in which both client beliefs about the benefits of treatment and the severity of client problems are hypothesized to predict the extent to which treatment is successful. - In a second step, the researcher considers how best to measure each variable in the model (in our example, this includes treatment expectations, problem severity, treatment motivation, and treatment outcome) and selects multiple measures for each variable. - allows for multiple measures
Case Formulation
- A description of the patient that provides information on his or her life situation, current problems and a set of hypotheses linking psychosocial factors with the patients clinical condition
Screening
- A procedure to identify individuals who make have problems of a clinical magnitude or who may be at risk developing such problems - The purpose of screening for a dis order, condition, or characteristic is to identify, as accurately as possible, individuals who may have problems of a clinical magnitude or who may be at risk for developing such problems.
Effect Size
- A standardized metric, typically expressed in a standard deviation units or correlations, that allow the results of research studies to be combined and analyzed - For correlational analyses, the correlation coefficient(statistical relationship between two variables) is typically used as the effect size. For analyses involving differences among groups, the effect size is obtained by calculating the difference between the means of two groups and then dividing by the standard deviation of either one of the groups or the pooled sample of both groups.
Mediator
- A variable that explains the mechanism by which a predictor variable influences a criterion variable - For example, the relation between parental psychopathology and child adjustment may be due, partially or entirely, to the quality of the relationship between parent and child. - mediator analyses are used to explain the conceptual link among variables. - used in correlational and experimental designs
Moderator
- A variable that influences the strength of the relation between a predictor variable (IV) and a criterion varible (DV) - For example, the relation between the experience of stressful life events and psychological distress may be moderated by the type of coping strategies used-> Given comparable levels of life stress, the greater use of coping strategies designed to actively engage and resolve problems may result in lower levels of distress - moderator analyses are used to enhance the researcher's ability to predict as much variance as possible in a criterion variable by exploring the ways in which other variables can be combined to predict the criterion - used in correlational and experimental designs
Randomized controlled trial
- An experiment in which research participants are randomly assigned to one of two or more treatment conditions - involve random assignment of participants - In many instances, a no-treatment condition (often called a wait-list condition) is included, in which research participants do not immediately receive any form of intervention. Then, in order to meet ethical standards, once a period that is comparable to the duration of the treatment or treatments being investigated has passed, those in the no-treatment condition are offered treatment.
Intervention Focused assessment services
- Assessments conducted in the context of intervention services - the psychological assessment is not a stand-alone service but is conducted as a first step in providing an effective intervention - Pre-treatment assessment findings are used to determine appropriate psychological interventions.
correlation design vs analysis
- Correlational designs can be analyzed with all types of statistics, including correlations, partial correlations, multiple regression, t-tests, or analysis of variance (ANOVA)- no manipulation occurs no manipulation occurs - correlational designs: come in many forms. Some are purely descriptive, such as the bulk of epidemiological research on the study of the incidence (the rate of new cases of a disorder in a specific time period), prevalence (the overall rate of cases of a disorder in a specific time period), and distribution (rates of disorders across geographic areas and/or sociodemographic characteristics)
Rater Evaluations
- Data may be obtained from someone knowledgeable about a participant's involvement in a study, such as a rater who viewed videotapes of the participant performing a task or a therapist who provided treatment to the participant.
Dimensional Approach to classification
- Dimension= A measureable extent Classification entities differ in the extent to which they possess certain characteristics or properties - focuses on quantitative differences among entities and reflects the assumption that all entities can be arranged on a continuum to indicate the degree of membership in a category - Weight and height are prime examples of ways that dimensional approaches are used to classify people - the different parts that make up the dimension may not be related but must reflect significant higher order constructs rather than just descriptive features (ex. a construct such as neuroticism, rather than specific psychological phenomena such as sadness, nervousness, loneliness, poor self-esteem, or poor self-confidence).
Experimental Designs
- Have both random assignment to condition and experimental manipulation - still may have cofounds ex. therapists who are supposed to be providing the same treatment may differ in how closely they follow the treatment protocol or by random assignment failing to have equal groups across all dimensions prior to the intervention - provide best protection against threats to internal validity - if lack pre test experiment is weaker (no baseline) - also called "true experiments"
Informant-Report Measures
- Information about a target research participant is gathered from other individuals. In clinical psychology research, this is typically someone who is well-acquainted with the participant, such as a partner, a parent, or a teacher.
Evidence-based assesment
- Is an approach to psychological evaluation that uses research and theory to guide (a) the variable assessed (b) the methods and measures and (c) the manner in which the assessment process unfolds - It involves the recognition that the assessment process is a decision-making task in which the clinician must repeatedly formulate and test hypotheses by integrating data obtained throughout the assessment - First step= interviews, self reports Next= integrate assessment data for individual clients
Donald Campbell
- Originally conceptualized that potential design problems are classified as representing threats to the internal validity, external validity, or statistical conclusion validity of a study
Performance Measures
- Participants may be asked to complete tasks in a study, such as a visuomotor task, a response time task, an identification task, or a task related to specific intellectual or social skills.
True negative
- Prediction that a non event was accurate-> no diagnosis was used as there was no disorder
Prognosis
- Predictions made about the future course of a patient's psychological functioning, based on the use of assessment data in combination with relevant empirical literature - literature, to make predictions about the future course of a patient's psychological functioning
Specificity
- Proportion of true negatives identified by the assessment - number of times a non event is predicted compared w the number of times that no event occurred - relative proportion of true negatives - specificity provides information on how well the assessment procedures were able to identify individuals who would not attempt suicide
Sensitivity
- Proportion of true positives identified by the assessment - determined by dividing the number of true positives by the sum of true positives and false negatives - sensitivity provides information on how well the assessment procedures were able to detect future suicide attempts
Archival Data
- Research data are often obtained from information sources that exist apart from the actual research study. This may include such sources as police records, health care utilization records, and academic records.
Assessment-focused services
- Services conducted primarily to provide information on a person's psychosocial functioning - can be a person's current or anticipated deficits
evidence of incremental(increase) validity
- The extent to which a measure adds to the prediction of a criterion above what can be predicted by other sources of data.
evidence of concurrent validity
- The extent to which scores on the test are correlated with scores on measures of similar constructs
External Validity
- The extent to which the interpretations drawn from the results of a study can be generalized beyond the narrow boundaries of the specific study question - sample characteristics (hard to map certain characteristics onto other populations), stimulus characteristics(therapists are better in one group), reactivity of research arrangements(ppl act diff in studies), Reactivity of assessment (b/c ppl are in a study they change their mood, additudes), timing of measurement(effects over time might not be stable but just happen to be stable when you measure them)
Internal Validity
- The extent to which the interpretations drawn from the results of a study can be justified and alternative interpretations can be reasonably ruled out - researchers usually give priority to this over external validity - History, maturation, testing, instrumentation, statistical regression (scores get less extreme), selection biases, attrition (loose ppl over long term)
Statistical conclusion validity
- The extent to which the results of a study are accurate and valid based on the type of statistical procedure used in the research
evidence of discriminant validity
- The extent to which the test provides a pure measure of the construct that is minimally contaminated by other psychological constructs.
evidence of content validity
- The extent to which the test samples the type of behaviour that is relevant to the underlying psychological construct - representative of all aspects of the underlying psychological construct the test is designed to measure
Base rate
- The frequency with which a problem or diagnosis occurs in the population - the less frequently a problem occurs, the more likely a prediction error will occur
Systematic Review
- The use of a systematic and explicit (clear) set of methods to identify, select and critically appraise research studies
A-B-A single case design
- This is similar to the A-B design except that the treatment is withdrawn after a few weeks and data continue to be collected for a second A period (i.e., a period in which no treatment occurs). - Time A= intervention-> time B= back to regular routine-> Time A= if behaviour starts occurring again it means that treatment was working and you should start it up again
Michael Lambert
- a major contributor to the research on assessing changes due to treatment, demonstrated that routine treatment monitoring can substantially affect treatment outcome
The most frequently occurring mental disorders were..the most disabling disorders were...
- anxiety disorders, insomnia, depression, somatoform disorders, and alcohol and drug dependence - the most disabling disorders were depression, dementias, alcohol use disorders, and stroke.
International Classification of functioning, disability and health
- companion classification system for the ICD - system for describing health and health related conditions with respect to functioning and disability (ex. impairments in functioning, activity limitations, participation restriction) - information is coded for both the person's body (functions of body systems and body structures) and the person's societal involvement (activities and participation) -> focus= overall functioning and disability as opposed to just a clinical diagnosis-> particularly useful for rehab psychologists and pain managment
The DSM-IV included all what changes except?
- corrected errors identified in the DSM-IV text, updated the scientific information about disorders, and enhanced its educational value - The text revision did not, however, include changes in the criteria used to diagnose a disorder or changes in the listing of disorders.
Jacob Cohen
- developed many tools that assist researchers in determining the optimal number of participants to recruit for a study based on the phenomenon under investigation, the research design and the type of planned data analysis
Neil Jacobson
- developed the "reliable change index": determines whether a participants pre-treatment to post treatment change on a scale is statistically greater than what would be expected due to measurement error - If it is, and if the score on the scale has moved to within two standard deviations of the mean score for a control sample, then a clinically significant change is said to have occurred
Probability sampling
- focuses on the use of numerous strategies to ensure that the research sample is representative of the population (e.g., obtaining data from every 10th household in a neighbourhood; using census information to determine how many participants with different levels of income need to be recruited in a study) - the researcher knows the probability of selecting par ticipants from the population of interest. This is the type of sampling used in surveys that are frequently reported in the media on topics such as preferences for political parties or candidates, views on government priorities, and attitudes on issues such as immigration, health care, and the environment. - interested in obtaining an accurate and precise estimate of the strength, level, or frequency of some construct in the population.
inductive process
- for example, deriving an idea from repeated observations of everyday events. Even though the inductive process is not explicitly guided by theory, it is influenced by the researcher's informal theories, including his or her theoretical orientation and general world view.
eminence-based practice
- in which recommendations are accepted because the person delivering them is seen as an expert. - The public should be sceptical about accepting opinions simply because they come from a supposed expert on a television talk show
Quasi- Experimental Designs
- involve some form of manipulation by the researcher ex. exposure to different music while taking the task - does not involve random assignment - In the simplest design, one group receives the intervention, the other doesn't. - In the simplest design, one group receives the intervention, the other doesn't. - the treatment and control groups may not be comparable at baseline
confirmatory factor analysis
- is used to test a specific hypothesis regarding the nature of the factor structure - the researcher specifies, a priori, what the factor structure should be and how each variable or test item contributes to this structure - The statistical analysis then provides information on how well the structure observed in the data fits with the hypothesized factor structure.
Exploratory factor analysis
- is used when the researcher has no prior hypotheses about the structure of the data. - the pattern of correlations among variables or test items provides the evidence for the underlying factor structure in the data.
Emil Kraepelin
- modern attempts to classify and diagnose abnormal human behaviour began with the work of Emil Kraepelin, whose initial examination of dementia praecox (now called schizophrenia) and manic-depressive insanity (now called bipolar mood disorder) laid the foundation for current psychiatric diagnostic systems - The so-called neo Kraepelinian approach to classification has several characteristics. These include viewing each diagnosis as a medical illness using specific criteria to define a category, and emphasizing the importance of diagnostic reliability
false negative
- occurs when an event occurs that was not predicted buy the psychologist ex. someone has depression but wasn't diagnosed
False positive
- psychologist predicts event that will occur but in fact does not ex. kid diagnosed w adhd but doesn't have it
Validity
- we are evaluating both the degree to which there is evidence that the test truly measures what it purports to measure and the manner in which the test results are interpreted. - however, even if a test is valid for specific purposes within specific groups of people, it does not follow that it is valid for other purposes or groups - For example, knowing that an intelligence test is a valid predictor of academic functioning does not also automatically support its use as a test for determining child custody arrangements.
Test-retest reliability
- whether similar results would be obtained if the person was retested at some point after the initial test
A-B single case design
- with the A period representing the level of symptoms prior to the intervention (also known as the baseline) and the B period rep resenting the level of symptoms following the intervention.
Diagnostic system
A classification based on rules used to organize and understand diseases and disorders - When these decision-making rules are applied to the symptoms of a specific individual, the classification system yields a diagnosis - examples: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association and the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) of the World Health Orga nization (WHO).
Developmental Psychopathology
A framework for understanding problem behaviour in relation to the milestones that are specific to each stage of a person's development. - emphasizes the importance of major developmental transitions (such as starting daycare, learning to speak, going to high school, or moving into a long-term care facility) as well as disruptions to normal patterns of development (such as loss of a loved one, the effects of poverty, or exposure to trauma) - Central to this approach is a reliance on empirical knowledge of normal development-> must know what is considered normal in their age category to understand where problems could be arising - particularly useful in understanding problems of infancy and childhood - considers the current difficulties and the course of the problems if left untreated - has allowed psychologists to draw on a vast literature about parenting, child neglect and abuse, cognitive changes throughout life
Meta analysis
A set of statistical procedures for quantitatively summarizing the results of a research domain. - is now the standard for making a general statement about the findings in a research field - ex. A typical research study involves the collection of data from multiple research participants. The data are then summed up, and overall trends in the group of participants are examined using statistical procedures. The same general process occurs in meta-analysis, but the "participants" in a meta-analysis are research studies rather than individuals. - the use of meta-analysis improves the generalizability of the conclusions drawn on the basis of the literature - assists in the knowledge about many areas of research and which health care policies work the best
Factor Analysis
A statistical procedure used to determine the conceptual dimensions or factors that underlie a set of variables test items or tests. - often used in the development of a measure to determine which items contribute meaningfully to the test. - For example, a researcher may have data from participants who completed measures on a range of variables such as anger, anxiety, loneliness, shyness, and dysphoria. Through the use of factor analytic techniques, the researcher can determine whether these measures all assess distinct constructs or whether they are better understood as tapping into a single, broad construct often labelled general distress or negative affectivity.
Categorical Approach to Classification
An entity is determined to be either a member of a category or not - there is an important qualitative difference between entities that are members of a category and those that are not. An extreme example of a categorical approach is to classify entities as living or non-living - categories may or may not be overlapping, but those assigned to a category should be very similar to one another - DSM-5 is largely based on this type of classification-> disorders are classified on the basis of specific defining criteria.
Clinical Significance
In addition to the results of a study attaining statistical significance, the results are of a magnitude that there are changes in some aspects of participants daily functioning - does the intervention have meaningful impact on the functioning of the treated participants - One com monly used approach is to evaluate, for each participant, whether the participant could be said to be in the normal range of functioning. This may involve the use of norms, cut-off scores on scales, or pre-determined criteria (such as being employed or being able to function without assistance when performing self-care tasks)
Harmful Dysfunction
The behaviours associated with a mental disorder are dysfunctional, and the dysfunction causes harm to the individual or to those around him or her. - it is critical that some form of pathology is evident and causes impairement-> this is essential b/c for ex. someone can have a fear of heights that does not restrict their usual daily activities.
Dyscontrol
The impairment resulting from a disorder must be involuntary or not readily controlled
True positive
The prediction that an event will occur was accurate
Diagnosis
The result of applying the decision-making rules using the diagnostic system to classify the symptoms of a specific individual - The diagnosis concisely describes the symptoms that comprise the person's condition - never based on single symptom always cluster of co-occuring symptoms - Also focus on etiology of the condition= the cause
Robert Spitzer
The third edition of the DSM, published in 1980, marked a dramatic departure from the first two editions. Under the guidance of the task force chair, Robert Spitzer, enormous effort was devoted to improving the organization and classification of mental disorders. Indeed, so great was the shift from earlier editions that the DSM-III has been described as changing the entire focus of the mental health field - First, the manual was explicitly atheoretical, which allowed for the possibility of greater acceptance within the mental health field and for the introduction of concrete behavioural descriptions of most disorders - Second, the diagnostic criteria were much more explicit(clear) than they were previously, with lists of symptoms provided for each diagnosis - Third, as a significant part of the effort to improve upon the reliability of psychiatric diagnoses, thousands of patients and hundreds of clinicians were involved in field trials of the diagnostic system.
Classification utility
The usefulness of a classification scheme
Non-probability sampling
These sampling strategies may include advertising for research participants in a newspaper, on a website, or in a mental health treatment setting. - unlikely to be generalizable
Comorbidity
When a person receives diagnoses for two or more disorders at the same point in time.
The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD)
is the statistical classification of all health conditions developed and adopted by WHO and is now in its 10th edition - A section of the ICD covers mental and behavioural disorders - there is no cost to access it - used to provide population level data on different illnesses and causes of death- canada uses it this way - many countries modify-> so it can inform service supply to parents - US= modified to provide greater info about each diagnosis and the persons condition that goes beyond the information required for statistical purposes -> also Us department of health and human services requires the use of ICD-10-CM for billing - Compatible w/ DSM-5 each disorder described has a numerical code-> there are differences in some descriptions - focuses more greatly on clinical utility than the DSM-5
deductive process
the researcher uses a formal theory to generate a research idea. This is known as following a deductive process.
Inter-rater or inter-scorer reliability
whether similar results would be obtained if the test was conducted and/or scored by another evaluator
