Book Review: Psychological Testing: Principles, Applications & issues

Psychological Testing: Principles, Applications and Issues, 8^th Edition.

Robert M. Kaplan & Dennis P. Saccuzzo

Wadsworth: Belmont, California, 2013, 639 pp, $189.95

ISBN-10: 1-133-49201-0 / ISBN-13: 978-1-133-49201-6

Robert M. Kaplan, Ph.D., Associate Director for Behavioral and Social Sciences at the National Institutes of Health, and Dennis P. Saccuzzo, Professor Emeritus at San Diego State University and Adjunct Professor of Law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, present the 8^th edition of their textbook, Psychological Testing: Principles, Applications, & Issues. This textbook provides the theoretical underpinnings of psychological test assessment.

Each chapter is laid out with learning objectives followed by a brief history of the subject, early theories on the subject, modern theories, examples of how to apply to modern research, issues relating to psychological testing, suggestions for how to correct error, and finishing off with a brief summary of the chapter - sometimes with a small section of practice questions. Chapters 1 to 3 review the basic statistics needed to understand test outputs, chapters 4 and 5 deal with reliability and validity, respectively, and the remaining 16 chapters explore test construction, test administration, ethical issues and applications of psychological testing.

Kaplan and Saccuzzo are thoughtful in their attempts to explain complex concepts, for example “reliability of a difference score”, describing each term in the formula, working through at least one example of the formula in use, and briefly summarizing the concept in simple language. There is an apparent awareness of how dense and abstract the material discussed is, demonstrated by the authors’ inclusions of multiple examples, summaries, and tables which further reduce the topic to the basic underlying principles. Examples are relevant to university students with repeated references to Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) and their validity in predicting graduate student success. By using examples which the readers can relate, the concepts behind those examples become much more salient.

An understanding of reliability and validity is crucial when dealing with tests. Kaplan and Saccuzzo’s chapter on validity logically progresses from describing face validity, a superficial appearance of the items relatedness to the purpose of the test, to criterion- related validity, and ending with construct validity, which “many psychologists now believe…is the only major type of validity that need concern us.” (p.153).

Chapters 11 to 20 examine psychological assessments and their applications across a variety of professions and settings. Psychological tests are conducted in education, military, counseling, clinical, industrial/business, health care and forensic settings to measure intelligence, personality, aptitude, mental status and quality of life. All forms of tests are created and evaluated based on principles of reliability and validity, making this textbook applicable to a broad range of health professionals (e.g., psychiatric nurses, occupational therapists) who administer psychological inventories across the world.

This textbook is an especially valuable resource for graduate students and prospective health professionals interested in conducting and understanding psychological assessments. The diverse backgrounds of the Kaplan and Saccuzzo are a testament to the wide variety of settings which psychological assessments can be utilized in. The explanations are thorough, the structure of the text is well organized, examples are easy to understand, and the applications of testing beyond the discipline of psychology are clear. The result is a textbook which is intently focused on the readers and their comprehension of the material.

Review by: Katelyn Stewart

 

Summary: Interprofessional patient-centred practice in oncology teams: utopia or reality?

Studies on interprofessional practice usually report professionals’ viewpoints and document organizational, procedural and relational factors influencing that practice. Considering the importance of interprofessional patient-centred (IPPC) practice, it seems necessary to describe it in detail in an actual context of care, from the perspective of patients, their families and health-care professionals. 

Karine Bilodeau, Sylvie Dubois and Jacinthe Pepin recently conducted a study to describe IPPC practice throughout the continuum of cancer care. A qualitative multiple case study was completed with two interprofessional teams from a Canadian teaching hospital. Interviews were conducted with patients, their families and professionals, and observation was carried out. 

Three themes were illustrated by current team practice: welcoming the person as a unique individual, but still requiring the patient to comply; the paradoxical coexistence of patient-centred discourse and professional-centred practice; and triggering team collaboration with the culmination of the patient’s situation. Several influential factors were described, including the way the team works; the physical environment; professionals’ and patients’/family members’ stance on the collaboration; professionals’ stance on patients and their families; and patients’ stance on professionals. 

Finally, themes describing the desired IPPC practice reflect the wish of most participants to be more involved. They were: providing support in line with the patient’s experience and involvement; respecting patients by not imposing professionals’ values and goals; and consistency and regularity in the collaboration of all members.

Read More: http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/13561820.2014.942838

Summary: Interprofessional Education and Practice Guide No. 3: Evaluating interprofessional education

There has been an ongoing increase in the publication of evaluation work aimed at measuring the processes and outcomes related to a range of interprofessional education (IPE) activities and initiatives. Systematic reviews of IPE have, however, suggested that while the quality of evaluation studies is improving, there continues to be a number of empirical weaknesses with this work.

In an effort to enhance the quality of IPE evaluation studies, Reeves and colleagues have produced a short guide providing a series of ideas and suggestions about how to undertake a robust evaluation of an IPE event. The guide presents a series of key lessons for colleagues to help them undertake a good quality IPE evaluation, covering a range of methodological, practical and ethical issues. These include: the formation of evaluation questions, use of evaluation models and theoretical perspectives, advice about the selection of qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods evaluation designs, managing evaluation resources, and ideas about disseminating evaluation results to the broader IPE community.

It is anticipated that this guide will assist IPE colleagues in undertaking high-quality evaluation in order to provide valuable evidence for different stakeholders, and also help inform the scholarly knowledge for the interprofessional field.

Read More: http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/13561820.2014.1003637

An ethnographic investigation of junior doctors’ capacities to practice interprofessionally in three teaching hospitals

Collaborative practice among early career staff is at the bedrock of interprofessional care. Milne, Greenfield and Braithwaite investigated factors influencing the enactment of interprofessional practice in a recent study using the day-to-day role of six junior doctors in three teaching hospitals as a gateway to understand the various professions’ interactive behaviours. The contextual framework used for the study was Strauss’ theory of negotiated order. Ethnographic techniques were applied to observe the actions and interactions of participants on typical working days in their hospital environments. Field notes were created and thematic analysis was applied to the data. Three themes explored were culture, communication, and collaboration. 

Issues identified highlight the bounded organisational and professional cultures within which junior doctors work, and systemic problems in interprofessional interaction and communication in the wards of hospitals. There are indications that early career doctors are interprofessional isolates. The constraints of short training terms and pressure from multi-faceted demands on junior doctors can interfere with the establishment of meaningful relationships with nurses and other health professionals.

The realisation of sustained interprofessional practice is, therefore, practically and structurally difficult. Enabling factors supporting the sharing of expertise are outweighed by barriers associated with professional and hospital organisational cultures, poor interprofessional communication, and the pressure of competing individual task demands in the course of daily practice.

Read More: http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/13561820.2015.1004039

Minding the gap: Prioritization of care issues among nurse practitioners, family physicians and geriatricians when caring for the elderly

Accumulating health problems of the elderly requires recognition of geriatric syndromes, while shifting away from a conventional disease-specific approach. 

Moore and colleagues recently surveyed 179 practitioners representing Family Physicians (FPs), Nurse Practitioners (NPs) and geriatricians in Ontario, in order to quantify how they prioritize syndromes, diseases and conditions in the elderly. Identifying differences may inform opportunities for interprofessional sharing of expertise among professionals pursuing a common goal, which is expected to improve interprofessional collaboration.

Their survey (response rate 36%) identifies that NP, FP and geriatrician respondents all recognize co-occurrence of “multiple morbidities” as one of the most frequently encountered issues when serving the elderly, however FPs and NPs place higher priority on managing individual chronic diseases than explicitly prioritizing geriatric syndromes. The findings identify a need for a more clearly defined role for the geriatrician as syndrome-educator and implies further need for collaborative approaches to caring for seniors that values different professional’s expertise.

Read More: http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/13561820.2014.966352

Student reflections following exposure to a case-based interprofessional learning experience: Preliminary findings

Goldberg et al.'s recent study analyzed students’ written reflections following their initial exposure to interprofessional teamwork in case-based problem-solving. A three-hour seminar featuring three sequenced scenarios was developed and offered 12-times over two semesters. A total of 305 students from a variety of healthcare programs worked together with standardized patients in an on-campus laboratory simulating hospital ward and rehabilitation settings.

A thematic analysis of students’ reflections showed that they valued the shared learning and realistic case study. However, they felt the experience would be strengthened by working in smaller, more representative teams that included students from medicine, psychology, and social work to enable more effective communication and comprehensive case discussion. 

While useful for future planning, the identified themes did not enable a comparative statistical analysis of what students found helpful and difficult and a re-coding of students’ responses now is underway. Implications for measuring the effectiveness of future interprofessional case-based learning center on addressing the identified weaknesses, and establishing a research design that enables a comparison of pre- and post-seminar data, and the effectiveness of the IPE experience compared to profession-specific experiences.

Read More: http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/13561820.2014.969835

Interprofessional mental health training in rural primary care: Findings from a mixed methods study

The benefits of interprofessional care in providing mental health services have been widely recognized, particularly in rural communities where access to health services is limited. There continues to be a need for more continuing interprofessional education in mental health intervention in rural areas. There have been few reports of rural programs in which mental health content has been combined with training in collaborative practice.

This study by Heath and colleagues used a sequential mixed-method and quasi-experimental design to evaluate the impact of an interprofessional, intersectoral education program designed to enhance collaborative mental health capacity in six rural sites.

Quantitative results reveal a significant increase in positive attitudes toward interprofessional mental health care teams and self-reported increases in knowledge and understanding about collaborative mental health care delivery. The analysis of qualitative data collected following completion of the program, reinforced the value of teaching mental health content within the context of collaborative practice and revealed practice changes, including more interprofessional and intersectoral collaboration.

This study suggests that imbedding explicit training in collaborative care in content focused continuing professional education for more complex and chronic health issues may increase the likelihood that professionals will work together to effectively meet client needs.


Read More: http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/13561820.2014.966808