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?