EDP 630 Principles of Psychological Measurement

Fall 2001; Wednesday 1-3:30, DH 131

S. Rostosky, Ph.D., Professor

Office hours by appointment (DH 231)

Phone: 257-7880

rostosk@pop.uky.edu

Purpose:

The purpose of this course is to help students develop a conceptual model of assessment that will guide them through the assessment process from initial client referral to final report dispensation. This course provides a broad overview of the psychological assessment of individuals and offers students opportunities to begin to develop the skills needed to become reflective decision-makers throughout the assessment process.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this course, each student should be able to:

1. Articulate the process of test construction and validation.

2. Evaluate tests using basic measurement constructs such as validity, reliability, norms, standardization.

3. Conduct an assessment and interpret the results in a professional report.

4. Describe the categories of assessment instruments and exhibit a general familiarity with several measures from each category.

5. Demonstrate working knowledge of the important ethical and legal issues related to group and individual assessment.

6. Consider issues regarding racism, sexism, and cultural diversity when making assessment decisions.

7. Articulate current trends and controversies in the field of psychological assessment.

Summary of Required Learning Activities: (see handouts for detailed requirements for the writing assignments)

Required Reading:

Cohen, R.J., Serdlik, M.E., & Phillips, S.M. (1998). Psychological Testing and Assessment: An Introduction to Tests and measurement. Mountain View, California: Mayfield Publishing.

Cohen, R. J. (1999). Exercises in Psychological Testing and Assessment. Mountain View, California: Mayfield Publishing.

Supplementary reading (on reserve in Education Library):

American Psychiatric Associaton (1994). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4^th edition).

American Education Research Association, American Psychological Association, and the National Council on Measurement in Education (1998). Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing.

Learning Activities (continued)

Application exercises and guided reading questions: (5 points each, 20 total). The due dates for these exercises and discussion questions correspond to the relevant reading material and are noted in the syllabus. See handout of guided reading questions. You may work with a partner to complete this assignment. Submit one copy of your work with both of your names attached.

Mock assessment reaction paper: (5 points). Some believe that a clinician should never give a test that he/she hasn’t taken him or herself. Practice administering the assessment battery to one of your classmates. Then, score and interpret your own battery. Write a one-page, double-spaced reaction paper defending your position on one of the following statements: 1) I learned more from taking the tests than administering the tests; 2) I learned more from administering the tests than taking the tests myself; 3) I didn’t learn anything from this exercise that I didn’t already know.

Assessment Reports: (20 points each: 40 total) Each student will be asked to administer, score, interpret, and write two assessment reports based on the results of a brief clinical interview, behavioral observations, and 3 standardized assessment measures (K-BIT, SCL-90, BDI-II). Volunteer assessment clients will be recruited by each student and ‘traded’ with a classmate (so that one is not assessing a close friend or family member). Written informed consent will be obtained prior to volunteers’ participation in the exercise. Because this is a training exercise, volunteer participants are to be informed before participation that no results will be provided to them or any agency. Please turn in all test protocols with the assessment reports. The reports will be 2-3 pages long and will be due October 10 and November 7.

Project (25 points) and Class Presentation (10 points). Select and complete one of the projects listed below. On the date that this topic is discussed in class, share the results of your project and what you learned about assessment in a 10-15 minute presentation.

Counseling and Clinical Assessment (Exercise 13-4)

Assessment of Intelligence (Exercises: 8-7, 9-4,9-5, or 9-7)

Educational Assessment (Exercise 10-4, 10-5, or 10-8)

Personality Assessment (Exercise 11-1, 11-3, 11-6,11-10, 12-2, 12-3, or 12-9)

Neuropsychological Assessment (Exercise 14-2 or 14-4)

Assessment of People with Disabilities (Exercise 15-3 or 15-4)

Computer Assisted Psychological Assessment (Exercise 17-1, 17-2, or 17-3)

Grading:

Grades will be assigned as follows:

90-100 points = A

80-89 points = B

70-79 points = C

below 70 = E

Policies:

Attendance and active class participation is expected and required. Please refer to the University Bulletin (p. 49) for the definition of an excused absence. All other absences will be considered unexcused. More than one unexcused absence could result in a lowering of your grade by as much as 10%.

Penalty for late assignments: Assignments are due at the beginning of the class period and will be immediately penalized 10% of the total point value and then an additional 10% for each 24 hours that the assignment is late. If you are having difficulty with an assignment, please contact the professor as soon as possible. To complete all activities at the level of excellence expected of graduate students (and new professionals in our field) you should plan to attend all class periods and spend 8-10 hours per week outside of class working on your learning activities.

Test Security and Responsibility: Students enrolled in this course are responsible for all test materials loaned to them by the department or the instructor. The contents of the test kits should be complete when they are returned, and students are to adhere to the APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct guidelines concerning the use and protection of psychological test instruments and data.

Quality Assurance Contract: The Quality Assurance Contract (see the student handbook) is an honor code in the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology. Each student should complete and hand in this contract with each assessment report and the with the major project. Implicit in this contract is the avoidance of cheating, (i.e. pretending to assess an individual, when in fact you or someone else not described in the report completed the protocols. Plagiarism and cheating are serious offenses that carry with them the minimum penalty of an “E” in the course and the maximum penalty of expulsion from the University. Therefore, students should take this contract seriously and realize that their academic future rests upon their honesty and integrity and their ability to uphold the contract.

Learning Module 1: The Science of Psychological Measurement	Class activities/topics	Learning Activities due:
8/22	Introduction and Overview	Chapter 1
8/29	Legal and Ethical Issues	Chapter 2 Exercise 2-2 Guided reading questions
9/5	Evaluating Tests: Norms, Correlation, and Inference	Chapter 3 and 4 Bring in names and phone numbers of volunteers. Bring money to purchase 3 testing packets) Exercise 4-2 Guided reading questions
9/12	Evaluating Tests: Reliability and Validity	Chapter 5 and 6 Exercise 5-2 Guided reading questions
9/19	Test Development	Chapter 7 Turn in the project title you have selected to complete and present. Exercise 7-1
Learning Module 2: Applied Clinical Assessment, Diagnosis, and Report Writing
9/26	Clinical Interviewing, Behavioral Observation and Assessment	Chapter 13 Mock assessment of your partner and reaction paper(1 page, double-spaced). See “Learning Activities” for instructions.
10/3	Using the DSM-IV	Conduct Assessment #1. Read Introductory material in DSM-IV and familiarize yourself with the general organization.
10/10	Writing Psychological Reports	Chapter 13 (review)
10/17	Communicating Results	Assessment report #1 due.

Tentative class schedule EDP 630 (continued)

Learning Module 3: Categories of Psychological Testing
10/24	Intelligence	Conduct Assessment # 2; Chapter 8 and 9
10/31	Educational Assessment	Chapter 10.
11/7	Personality	Assessment report # 2 due. Chapter 11
11/14	Personality Quiz on module 3 readings	Chapter 12

11/21	No class meeting
11/28	Neuropsychological Assessment	Chapter 14
11/29	The Assessment of People with Disabilities	Chapter 15
12/5	Jobs and Careers Computer Assisted Psychological Assessment	Chapter 16 and 17

Guided Reading Questions

Chapter 2

1. Who should be privy to psychological test data?

2. Who should be able to purchase test data?

3. Who is qualified to administer, score, and interpret psychological tests?

4. What level of expertise in psychometrics is required to be qualified to administer each type of test?

Chapters 3 and 4

1. For the following decisions, choose which type of measurement, norm-referenced or criterion-referenced, you believe most appropriate:

a. admission to your university honors program

b. state licensing/registration as a medical doctor, barber, and/or psychologist

c. minimal competency exam for graduation from high school

d. program planning for remedial instruction in reading

e. grade in your psychological measurement course

2. Drawing upon the discussion of correlation in Chapter 4, choose the most appropriate type of correlation coefficient (Person r, Spearman rho, and so on), and diagram what the scatterplots might look like for the following examples:

a. the relationship between chronological age and intelligence

b. height and weight

c. male/female and weight

d. male/female and dead or alive

e. tall/short and pass or fail a physical fitness test

f. thin/heavy and GPA

3. Conduct a PsychInfo search on cross-cultural research on a psychological trait of your choosing (e.g., conformity, shyness, aggressiveness). Print the abstracts and summarize the assessment methods used to measure the psychological trait. Share findings in class.

Chapters 5 and 6

1. What is the relationship between construct validity and the other forms of validity evidence?

2. Discuss the relationship between reliability and validity. Can an unreliable test be a valid one? Can a reliable test not have adequate validity? Can a test that has adequate validity be unreliable?

3. If members of one minority group consistently score significantly lower than members of another ethnic group on a particular test, is the test necessarily biased? What is test bias?