PS280 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Criterion Validity, Construct Validity, Content Validity
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Chap 4: Assessment and Research Methods
-psychological assessment: series of scores placed within context of history, referral info, behavioural
observations, and life of an individual to provide a comprehensive understanding of that individual
-good assessment tool depends on two things: (1) accurate ability to measure some aspect of person
being assessed, (2) knowledge of how people in general fare on measure for comparison purposes
-content validity: measures all behaviours related to construct (ex depression = sadness, lack of energy)
-criterion validity: extent to which measure is related to outcome (concurrent and predictive)
-construct validity: importance of test w/i specific theoretical framework (ex self-esteem is abstract)
Clinical approach:
-no substitute for the clinician's experience and personal judgement and guided by intuition honed w
professional experience rather than by formal rules
-most commonly used by clinicians
Actuarial approach:
-more objective, empirical standard is needed; rely exclusively on statistical procedures, empirical
methods, and formal rules in evaluating data
-more efficient in making predictions in a variety of situations esp when many predictions must be
made and the base of the data is large
-problems: many of the equations and algorithms found in literature do not generalize to practice
settings + there are no prediction rules for the bulk of our decisions
Brain Imaging Techniques:
Electroencephalogram (EEG):
-electrodes placed on scalp to measure brain's electical activity