Find tests, questionnaires, examples of charts, and tips on statistics related to psychology, counseling, social work and other behavioral science fields. I may earn from purchases of advertised or linked products. Note: Most tests and questionnaires are for research purposes and not for personal assessment. Readers interested in personal evaluations should consult a psychologist or other qualified provider.
Thursday, December 21, 2017
Presenting Survey Results
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
How to Measure Wisdom
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Thinker |
Psychologists are finding that societies do share an agreed understanding and conception of wisdom. Wisdom is a construct composed of the following traits:
- Deep self-knowledge
- Social intelligence and life skills
- Broad compassion
- Emotional management
- Multi-model perspective-taking
- Uncertainty navigation
Full Scale = .86 and subscales .69
Short 12-item version = .73 and subscales .63
Item sample for Short Scale (all rated as 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree).
Cognitive
A problem has little attraction for me if I don’t think it has a solution.
Reflective
When I look back on what has happened to me, I can’t help feeling resentful.
Affective
I’m easily irritated by people who argue with me.
See the Thomas et al., 2017 article for details.
Resource Link: A – Z Test Index
Applied Statistics: Concepts for Counselors
Saturday, November 18, 2017
GRATITUDE - Measuring Gratitude
In this post, I refer to a set of items to assess gratitude. The Gratitude Questionnaire uses six items and was published by McCullough, Emmons, and Tsang in 2002.
I have written elsewhere about gratitude. People high in the virtue of gratitude are often high in other virtues as well such as optimism and life satisfaction. They also tend to be more religious. In the previous post, The Psychology of Gratitude, I list some suggestions to increase gratitude.
Reliability
In previous research, the authors found support for one factor. Coefficient alpha, a measure of interitem consistency, ranged from .76 to .84 in samples reported by the authors (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002; McCullough, Tsang, & Emmons, 2002).
Rating the Scale Items
When using the scale in surveys the items are rated on a 7-point scale from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7). High scores indicate a higher level of self-reported gratitude.
Here's the 7-point rating: 1 = strongly disagree 2 = disagree 3 = slightly disagree 4 = neutral 5 = slightly agree 6 = agree 7 = strongly agree
Here are the six-items from the scale:
____1. I have so much in life to be thankful for.
____2. If I had to list everything that I felt grateful for, it would be a very long list.
____3. When I look at the world, I don’t see much to be grateful for.*
____4. I am grateful to a wide variety of people.
____5. As I get older I find myself more able to appreciate the people, events, and situations that have been part of my life history.
____6. Long amounts of time can go by before I feel grateful to something or someone.*
*The items marked with an asterisk are reverse scored so a score of 7 counts as 1 and a score of 6 become 2 and so on.
The total score should be between 6 and 42.
A score of 38 was at the 50th percentile in a sample of 1,224. See the link for more information.
And, here is a link to research studies using the scale (Gratitude Questionnaire). You will find information on scoring and interpreting the scores.
The scale has been used in research studies along with other scales.
It may also be relevant in some counseling situations.
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McCullough, M. E., Emmons, R. A., & Tsang, J. (2002). The grateful disposition: A conceptual and empirical topography. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 112-127.
McCullough, M. E., Tsang, J., & Emmons, R. A. (2004). Gratitude in intermediate affective terrain: Links of grateful moods to individual differences and daily emotional experience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 295-309.
Also, learn more about assessment and statistics at the Applied Statistics website
Friday, November 17, 2017
Marriage & Divorce Rates by Age and Year
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Monday, October 30, 2017
Chart Example Marriage Age by year
The chart based on data from CDC 2015 provides an example of tracking three trends over time.
The bars indicate the percentage of births to unmarried women. The upper teal line represents the median age at first marriage and the orange broken line indicates median age at first birth.
Notice the "crossover" of the two lines referring to first birth and first marriage.
Note also the stabalized trend for births to unmarried women easily visible on the bar portion of the chart. About 40% of women are unmarried when their children are born.
You can read text related to the story at the BGSU weblink:
https://www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resources/data/family-profiles/eickmeyer-payne-brown-manning-crossover-age-first-marriage-birth-fp-17-22.html
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Saturday, October 28, 2017
HOPE - How to measure hope
The Adult Hope Scale developed by C. R. Snyder of the University of Kansas is an easy to use measure of hope. The original scale has 12-items, which measure two dimensions of hope based on hope theory. Four measure agency and four measure pathways--the other four are distractors.
The agency concept measures the capacity to focus energy on a goal. The pathways concept assesses plans to achieve goals. In recent studies, the four distraction items are often dropped leaving 8-items. Researchers often use the total score for the 8-items as a measure of trait (aka dispositional) hope.
I have also included a Spanish language measure of hope in this post.
Here's the text we (Sutton et al., 2018) used to refer to the scale along with our findings.
The items used a response format of 1 = definitely false to 8 = definitely true. A sample item is, “I meet the goals I set for myself.” Snyder et al. (1991) reported alphas between .79 and .95 in four samples.
In our two studies, the alpha reliability values were .82 and .95.
As you might expect, hope is positively correlated with well-being, which provides some evidence supporting validity. Hope was significantly correlated with the Schwartz Outcome Scale in both studies (.64, .76) and with the Theistic Spiritual Outcome Scale in study 2 (.72).
Using the Hope Scale
Counselors and psychotherapists may consider the scale in assessment of clients because it strongly predicts satisfaction with therapy and patient well-being, which are used as outcome measures as noted above (See Sutton et al., 2018)
Researchers may want to use hope in a variety of surveys looking at characteristics of populations. The reliability values of the items vary with the study yet indicate an overall consistency in many contexts.
The 8-item Scale
LINK TO COPY OF THE ADULT HOPE SCALE (also called The Trait Hope Scale)
Learn more about Hope Theory
Learn more about adding scales like Hope when Creating Surveys
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La Esperanza
A Spanish hope scale (Escala de Esperanza de Herth) is also available. An article suggests adequate psychometric properties for a 28-item version (Uribe, Bardales, & Herth, 2012).
Read more about hope in Chapter 5 of Living Well
References
Snyder, C. R., Harris, C., Anderson, J. R., Holleran, S. A., Irving, L. M., Sigmon, S. T., Yoshinoba, L., Gibb, J., Langelle, C., & Harney, P. (1991). The will and the ways: Development and validation of an individual-differences measure of hope. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 570-585. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.60.4.570
Uribe, P. M., Bardales, M.C., & Herth, K. (2012). Propiedades psicométricas de la Escala de Esperanza de Herth en español. RIDEP, 33, 127-145. (aidep.org)
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Wednesday, October 25, 2017
How to Compare Test Scores
z
|
T
|
Standard
|
Percentile
Rank
|
3
|
80
|
145
|
99.9
|
2.5
|
75
|
138
|
99.4
|
2
|
70
|
130
|
97.7
|
1.5
|
65
|
123
|
93.3
|
1
|
60
|
115
|
84.1
|
.5
|
55
|
108
|
69.2
|
0
|
50
|
100
|
50.0
|
-.5
|
45
|
93
|
30.8
|
-1
|
40
|
85
|
15.9
|
-1.5
|
35
|
78
|
6.7
|
-2
|
30
|
70
|
2.3
|
-2.5
|
25
|
63
|
0.6
|
-3
|
20
|
55
|
0.1
|
Thursday, October 12, 2017
INTELLIGENCE TESTS - What Counselors & Psychologists Know
Intelligence tests (IQ tests) are in the news lately as people banter about terms from many decades ago. IQ tests are widely used because they measure the ability of people to solve various problems, predict academic achievement, and help with job placement in some settings. The tests also help neuropsychologists assess functioning in people with impairments due to head injuries and brain diseases.
During part of my childhood, I passed a facility where American IQ testing began. I saw people on swings and on the grounds of the Vineland Training school in Vineland NJ. It turns out that a little over 100 years ago, American psychologist, Henry Goddard, brought a test by French scientist, Alfred Binet, to the New Jersey Training School for Feeble-Minded Girls and Boys in Vineland, NJ. The test was modified and widely used in the U.S.
What tests are used today?
Today, a number of tests are available in the US and elsewhere. Popular American tests are the Wechsler Intelligence Scales and the Stanford-Binet Scale. The tests are regularly updated with new materials and tasks appropriate to people of different ages. Several other tests are also available such as the Kaufman Assessment Battery, Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Ability, and the Differential Ability Scales.
A full scale test can last over an hour, so it is not surprising that a number of shorter tests are available. The shorter tests are considered "screening tests" because they include fewer subtests (or sets of tasks), to measure problem-solving skills. It is common to use a test of verbal ability such as vocabulary and a test of "nonverbal" ability such as tasks that require solving visually presented tasks.
Intelligence tests yield a variety of scores that recognize people have different abilities. This fits with common sense as we observe people with different abilities--strong verbal skills, incredible abilities to design complex structures, create various artistic works, and so forth. Still, many people want to know their IQ-- a short hand way of identifying an overall general ability. The overall score is controversial but remains in use.
In years past, the IQ (intelligence quotient) was measured as a ratio of chronological age to mental age. Mental age referred to a person's score on test tasks compared to others of the same age. As I posted previously, there are problems with age scores. Today, the scores on tests of intelligence compare people of similar ages to their age peers. For traditional reasons, the average IQ (or standard score) has an arithmetic average (M, mean) of 100 and a standard deviation (SD) of 15 points (read more about a few statistics).
It turns out that despite different test tasks and scales, people earn similar scores. An IQ score or standard score on one test is likely within a few points of the same score on a different test. As people age, the scores are more reliable-- that is stable. So, if an adult earns a score of 110 today, she would likely have a score within a few points of 110 in 2-years--unless something happened.
The stability of the scores make the tests useful when considering the effects of brain damage or disease. Of course, neuropsychologists use other tests as well (e.g., tests of memory, visual-spatial skills).
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What is average intelligence?
That can be a trick question unless you clarify what you mean by intelligence. On tests that report standard scores, the average score is 100. Using the common standard deviation of 15 points, about 68% of our age peers will score beetween 85 and 115. Close to 95% of people the same age will have scores in the range of 70 to 130. As you can see, only a small percentage of people score above 130 or below 70.
The test scores compare people to others of the same age. The skill levels develop rapidly in young children. Several months can make a difference in average scores. In adults, scores vary in how they change for people in large age brackets. Some abilities decline more rapidly than others. For example, young adults tend to be faster than older adults when solving tasks requiring eye-hand coordination.
What are some problems with IQ tests?
Test scores do not capture the range of abilities of people who are differently abled. For example, those with severe visual impairments cannot see visual test tasks. And those with severe hearing impairments may not respond well to spoken instructions or auditory tasks. Clearly, it would be wrong to assume something about a person's intelligence using tests that are not designed for people who have limited vision, hearing, or some other similar condition.
Some clinicians fail to document vision, hearing, or other limitations. For example, many people show up for testing and leave their eyewear at home. A child may forget his glasses or hearing aids.
People with temporary limitations cannot take tests as well as they could at other times. If you cannot use your dominant hand due to an injury, you will have difficulty on tests that require using your hands.
People taking medication can respond differently when taking medicine that either helps or interferes with attention and concentration. Of course, illegal drugs can also affect the brain processes needed to remember instructions and solve problems.
People who are not fluent in the language of the test may have a difficult time depending on their language skills.
So called "nonverbal tests" measure different abilities than tests that include language so mistakes can be made when making judgments about general intelligence or ability.
Clinicians make mistakes in recording information, scoring, or writing reports.
Tests are not perfect measuring instruments. Even when administered to people under the best of circumstances, there is measurement error. Measurement error is usually more variable for children than for adults. Measurement error refers to a variation in scores from one administration to another.
What about labels?
I suppose we will have a hard time escaping labels. The words used for people getting high scores or low scores have changed over the years--too many to cover in this post. Insulting words about a person's intelligence were terms used many decades ago. Today, clinicians and organizations like schools use a variety of terms focused on helping high scoring students learn in more challenging environments. And students who score very low on several tests, are elligible for services designed to help them maximize their potential. Insurance programs use cutoff scores and other criteria when awarding benefits to people with severely impaired abilities.
Who administers IQ tests?
A variety of professionals are qualified to administer, score, and interpret IQ tests. They are most commonly used by School Psychologists in schools and private practices. But other psychologists who specialize in neuropsychology also use IQ tests as part of their assessment. Many school counselors also have the necessary skills. In some cases, a psychological technician will administer the tests but the interpretation is left to the clinian holding an advanced degree along with the appropriate license or certification.
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Assessment of Spirituality and Religious Sentiments (ASPIRES) scale- Short Form
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