Question

Write a 1,050- to 1,225-word journal article centered on the value of psychological assessments and ethical and moral responsibilities.

Address the following assessment issues in your overview:

• Recommend an evidenced-based, psychological assessment instrument related to your area of interest (i.e., industrial organization or behavioral health).
• Compare the benefits and challenges of the psychological assessment instrument.
• Determine the importance of ethical and culturally-informed psychological assessment instrument.
• Explain the function and purpose of the psychological assessment instrument.
• Explain the role of reliability and validity in the analysis of assessment results.
• Explain the criteria for using standardized scores in assessments.

Answer 1

A psychological assessment can include numerous components such as norm-referenced psychological tests, informal tests and surveys, interview information, school or medical records, medical evaluation and observational data. A psychologist determines what information to use based on the specific questions being asked. For example, assessments can be used to determine if a person has a learning disorder, is competent to stand trial or has a traumatic brain injury. They can also be used to determine if a person would be a good manager or how well they may work with a team. One common assessment technique, for instance, is a clinical interview. When a psychologist speaks to a client about his or her concerns and history, they're able to observe how the client thinks, reasons and interacts with others. Assessments may also include interviewing other people who are close to the client, such as teachers, coworkers or family members. (Such interviews, however, would only be performed with written consent from the client.)

The value of having a standardized assessment is that they allow us to get to some of the subtle nuances and differences between different types of symptoms. The assessment process starts in the initial week of client interaction and helps to design and zero down on sophisticated diagnostic tools to examine the symptoms, personality, and cognitive function of each client. The detailed testing strategy not only allows for a holistic, comprehensive, and multidimensional understanding of each person’s struggles, optimizing diagnostic clarity but also gives an idea as to how to structure treatment for the best possible outcomes for the individual. Through accurate assessment Personality characteristics that can be harnessed to promote both short and long-term recovery are identified since a single symptom can be present in a client for various disorders.

For example:

Attention problems may be a symptom of ADHD, but could also be a symptom of depression, anxiety, or substance abuse. Testing has the ability to distinguish what type of attention problem it is and determine if it’s one that fits within an ADHD presentation, or within another type of disorder.

some children undergo educational testing (a branch of psychological testing) to determine if they have a learning disability or ADHD – both in the interest of helping to explain difficulties at school and possibly at home, and ultimately to seek recommendations as well as educational accommodations that can help them to learn better and excel academically.

Sometimes making a psychological diagnosis based on brief behavioral observations and the person’s self-report is not enough to get it right. That is where psychological asessment comes in. Through the use of objective measures, thorough clinical interviews, collateral information, etc., a diagnostic picture that reflects the person’s true difficulties can be made. And that means hoping for a better life in future.

Thorough assessment of personality factors are done that are present in a client because personality traits influence risks of developing certain types of symptoms.

Cognitive function which is language based, spatially based, forming and retrieving memory, creativity, task completions, attention, concentration, calculation, and reaction time tasks is assessed.

Sometimes what looks like a symptom of depression or anxiety is actually linked to a brain-based cognitive problem or organic impairment caused by long-term substance use. The cognitive tests allow making sure that all related diagnoses are being addressed and treated.

With the help of accurate standardized assessment of a client’s clinical requirements, psychotherapeutic and pharmacological interventions can be chosen to relieve symptoms in a targeted fashion to maximize efficacy. Additionally, the personality traits and cognitive strengths of the client are thoughtfully analyzed to ensure that interventions are structured in a way that encourages engagement and allows them to flourish. For example, somebody who is language-inclined is likely to find verbally-oriented interventions like Cognitive Behavioural therapy a naturally therapeutic practice, as they invite the use of their natural gifts. Meanwhile, art therapy can provide unique benefits to perfectionists, creating a space where they can let go of expectations of perfectionism and challenge their sense of having to be accurate and precise. By participating in modalities that speaks to a client and allows him/her to draw on his/her innate talents, preferences, and propensities, he/she can achieve more rapid healing and inner tranquillity

Some of the key benefits of assessment tools are:

Objectivity – An effective assessment tool is often the only objective information you can rely on.

Clarity – An effective assessment tool can help you see what you might otherwise miss and help you do so before it’s too late.

Insight – An effective assessment tool can tap into deep-seated and normally difficult to access attributes of people.

Confirmation – An effective assessment tool can help confirm or challenge good and bad attributes that you may have sensed but were unable to fully identify.

Reliability and Validity in the analysis of assessment results:

Reliability and validity are concepts used to evaluate the quality of research. They indicate how well a method, technique or test measures something. Reliability is about the consistency of a measure, and validity is about the accuracy of a measure.

Reliability measures how consistent test results are over time from tests, surveys, observations, etc.

• For educators, reliability refers to the extent to which assessment results are consistent in measuring student achievement.

• To measure reliability we usually calculate reliability coefficients that range in value from 0 to 1 (very good reliability would be over .70 or .80)

Validity is not complex, faceted, or dependent on nomological networks and social consequences of testing. It is a very basic concept and was correctly formulated, for instance, by Kelley (1927, p. 14) when he stated that a test is valid if it measures what it purports to measure. Validity refers to the accuracy of an assessment regardless of whether it measures what it is supposed to measure.

• Face Validity: Does the test seem to test what it was created for? People can rate this using a likert scale to assess face validity (1 through 5), but there are more accurate measures for validity.
• Concurrent Validity: Does it relate to an existing similar measure? It allows us to show that our test is valid by comparing it with an already existing valid test.
• Construct validity: It is about demonstrating that what is being measured exists and that is, Does the test reflect a specific theoretical construct or trait?
• Predictive Validity: can the test be used to predict later performance measured on a related criterion?

Few assessment instruments are:

• Assessment of Core CBT Skills (ACCS) | Kate Muse, Freda McManus, Sarah Rakovshik, Helen Kennerley | 2014
• Cognitive Therapy Scale – Revised (CTS-R) | Blackburn, James, Milne, Reichelt | 2001
• Drinking motives questionnaire | Cooper, Russell, Skinner, Windle | 1992
• Drinking motives questionnaire – adolescent | Cooper | 1994
• Aggression Questionnaire | Buss, Perry | 1992
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item (GAD-7) | Spitzer, Kroenke, Williams, Lowe | 2006
• Clinician-Rated Severity Of Autism Spectrum And Social Communication Disorders | American Psychiatric Association | 2013
• Assessment Tools For Adult Bipolar Disorder | Miller, Johnson, Eisner | 2009
• Hamilton Rating Scale For Depression (HAM-D) | Hamilton | 1960
• Dissociative Experiences Scale – II | Carlson, Putnam |1993
• Dimensional Obsessive Compulsive Scale (DOCS)                       

Ethics and moral responsibilities:

Ethics represents the moral code that guides a person’s choices and behaviors throughout their life. The idea of a moral code extends beyond the individual to include what is determined to be right, and wrong, for a community or society at large. Ethics is concerned with rights, responsibilities, use of language, what it means to live an ethical life, and how people make moral decisions. Morals may vary from person to person, religion to religion, and culture to culture, many have been found to be universal, stemming from basic human emotions.

Ethical issues in Psychological assessment are:

1. Competence of psychologist

2. Informed Consent

3. The right to Results

4. Confidentiality

5. Test security

6. Divided Loyalties

7. Invasion of privacy

8. Labeling

9. Dehumanization

criteria for using standardized scores in assessments:

A standardized test score is usually represented as a number indicating how well a child performed on an assessment. Standardized scores show how close a score is to the average score that was obtained in a sample. Standard deviations are typically used in the norm-referenced assessment to establish a scale for determining the significance of differences between scores. These differences are used to determine whether scores are average or significantly below or above average.