Course 6: Psychodiagnostics.
Summary of all tasks (literature), youtube vids, tutorial notes and lectures.
Inhoud
Tasks (literature, tutorial notes & video’s).............................................................................................3
Task 1: A difficult patient........................................................................................................................3
What is a psychological test/ psychological assessment? & is this helpful?.......................................3
What are the criteria for a good test? (Cotan criteria) the first 4......................................................7
What is the diagnostic process? (Barelds & Luteijn)...........................................................................9
What is BDI-II how can you interpret the cutoff scores?..................................................................14
What is a narcissistic personality disorder & the self-confidence test?............................................14
Task 2: Fool the assistant......................................................................................................................17
What is reliability within a psychological test? + 2. What different kinds of reliability are there?...17
What is Cronbach’s alpha & how do you interpret this score?.........................................................18
How do you measure reliability?......................................................................................................19
What is COTAN criterium 5?.............................................................................................................22
Important to know according to the tutor:.......................................................................................22
Task 3: who is right?.............................................................................................................................23
What is validity? & What is a valid test?...........................................................................................23
What different types of validity are there? - How can the different types of validity be determined?
..........................................................................................................................................................23
How do you measure validity?.........................................................................................................25
What are cotan criteria 6 & 7?.........................................................................................................25
How to deal with self-other (dis)-agreement in personality assessment?........................................26
Task 4: Andrew’s problems become clear............................................................................................27
What types of biases are there?.......................................................................................................27
What can we do to prevent bias?.....................................................................................................32
What influences decision making during the process? Which role has clinical experience in
diagnostics?......................................................................................................................................34
What are common errors in the diagnostic process?.......................................................................34
What is the bayes rule?....................................................................................................................35
Important to know according to the tutor:.......................................................................................36
Task 5: What’s the fuss?.......................................................................................................................36
How does the cultural background influence testing? - What are possible solutions to cultural
differences in testing?......................................................................................................................36
Are there any biases regarding language or cultural differences? - How can these biases be
avoided?...........................................................................................................................................38
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, Important to know according to the tutor:.......................................................................................43
Task 6: This isn’t helpful!......................................................................................................................43
What is therapeutic assessment?.....................................................................................................43
How does the therapeutic assessment differ from more traditional psychological assessment?....47
What are the 4 basic principles of the professional ethical code for psychologists?........................47
What are the ethical guidelines on psychological testing?...............................................................48
Lectures................................................................................................................................................51
Lecture 1 Introduction on psychodiagnostics.......................................................................................51
Lecture 2 Psychometrics.......................................................................................................................52
Lecture 3 Clinical reasoning..................................................................................................................54
Lecture 4 Psychological report writing.................................................................................................56
Lecture 5 Diagnostics of mental health symptoms across culture........................................................57
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,Tasks (literature, tutorial notes & video’s)
Task 1: A difficult patient
Resources:
Video: Psychological Tests Explained.
Meyer, G., Finn, S., Eyde, D., Kay, G., Moreland, K., Dies, R., Eisman, E., Kubiszyn, T., Reed, G., Psychologial
testing and psychological assessment.
Luteijn, F., Barelds, D., Baalen-Trevor, D., Psychological diagnostics in health-care.
Evers, A., Sijtsma, K., Lucassen, W., Meijer, R., The Dutch Review Process for Evaluating the quality of psychological
tests: History, Procedure and Results.
Beck’s Depression Inventory (1978)
Glinschinski, M., Brachel, R., Hirschfeld, G., How depressed is “depressed”? A systemati review and diagnostic meta-
analysis of optimal cut points for the BDI revised (BDI-II).
Jessica Yakeley, the current understanding of narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder.
Learning goals
1. What is a psychological test? & are psychological tests helpful?
2. What are the criteria for a good test? (Cotan criteria)
3. What is the diagnostic process? (Barelds & Luteijn)
4. What is BDI-II how can you interpret the cutoff scores?
5. What is a narcissistic personality disorder & the self-confidence test?
What is a psychological test/ psychological assessment? & is this helpful?
A psychological test is a standardized measure of a sample of behavior, that
establishes norms and uses important test-items that correspond to what the test is trying
to discover about the test-taker. It is also based on using uniformity of procedures in
administering and scoring the tests.
The standardized measure of a sample of behaviour: a reference point that a test
scorer can use to evaluate, judge, measure against and compare. This is established
by norms.
The norms: rely on the number of test-takers, who take a given test, to establish
what is normal in that group. The scores can then determine where an individual falls
within that group. ( explains why a bigger sample is better).
The test-items: questions that are asked on any given test. These need to be
relevant to what the test is trying to measure and must have large sets in order to
establish a proper measurement. The amount of questions is important, because the
more questions the more hances of establishing what the test-taker knows, to
establish their norm.
The uniformity of procedures in administering and scoring of the tests: it is important
that administrators present the test in the same way, test takers take the test in the
same way, scorers score the test in the same way. This helps the validity & reliability.
o Validity: testing what one is trying to discover.
o Reliability: being able to create similar/same outcomes everytime the test is
taken. consistency of measure.
Reliability and validity are both about how well a method measures something:
Reliability refers to the consistency of a measure (whether the results can be
reproduced under the same conditions).
Validity refers to the accuracy of a measure (whether the results really do represent
what they are supposed to measure).
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, Distinctions between psychological testing and psychological assessment:
Psychological testing: a relatively straight-forward process, wherein a particular scale is
administered to obtain a specific score. the score has one meaning.
Psychological assessment: a clinician takes a variety of test scores, generally obtained
from multiple test methods and considers the data in the context of history, referral
information and observed behaviour to understand the person being evaluated, to answer
the referral questions and to communicate the findings to the patient, their significant others
and referral sources. scores can have different meanings (considering all relevant
information).
So psychological assessment uses test-derived data in combination with historical
information, presented complaints, observations, interview results and information from third
parties, to disentangle the competing possibilities (e.g. differential diagnosis/ comorbidities)
It’s less expensive to let a single clinician use a single method to obtain information,
but this would result in an uncomplete or biased understanding of the patients, where
they will me misunderstood, mischaracterized, misdiagnosed and less optimally
treated. Over the long term this will only increase health care costs.
The purposes and appropriate uses of psychological assessment:
Some primary purposes of psychological assessment are:
1. To describe current functioning, including cognitive abilities, severity of disturbance
and capacity for independent living.
2. To confirm, refute or modify the impressions formed by clinicians through their
less structured interactions with patients.
3. To identify therapeutic needs, highlight issues likely to emerge in treatment,
recommend forms of intervention and offer guidance about likely outcomes.
4. To aid (help) in the differential diagnosis of emotional, behavioural and cognitive
disorders.
1,2,3,4 = pre-treatment evaluation assessment.
5. To monitor treatment over time to evaluate the success of interventions or to
identify new issues that may require attention as original concerns are resolved.
6. To manage risks, including minimalization of potential legal liabilities and
identification of unwanted treatment reactions.
7. To provide skilled, empathic assessment feedback as a therapeutic intervention in
itself.
Pre treatment evaluation assessment (to describe current functioning, confirm or refute
clinical impressions, identify treatment needs, suggest appropriate interventions or aid in
differential diagnosis) is likely to yield the greatest overall utility (heeft het meeste zin als):
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