Psychology 3301F/G Chapter 4: 2310 - chapter 4.doc

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 3301F/G
• Professor: All

Document Summary

Psychological assessment: systematic gathering and evaluation of information pertaining to an individual"s suspected abnormal behaviour (needed for diagnosis) A series of scores placed within context of history, referral info. , behavioural observations, life. Good assessment tools dependant on two things: accurate ability to measure some aspect of persona being assessed + knowledge of how the general population would generally measure (comparison) Test-retest reliability: degree to which a test yields same results when given more than once to the same person (higher the correlation coefficient the greater the reliability) Alternate-form reliability: two forms of same test with different wording measuring the same thing (high correlation between first and second scores show alternate-form reliability) Split-half reliability: measure of internal consistency, comparing response of odd-numbered to even-numbered items (if highly correlated = split-half reliability) Coefficient alpha: measure of internal consistency, averaging intercorrelations of all items on given test (higher coefficient alpha, higher internal consistency)