Assessment, Statistics, and Research

The Schwartz Outcome Scale (SOS ) has the potential to be a useful measure of counseling outcomes. Overview I and my colleagues used the 10-item version of the Schwartz Outcome Scale in two recent studies about psychotherapy patients. The scale measures several aspects of well-being:  physical, relational, and psychological functioning and the person’s capacity to be peaceful, interested, excited, and satisfaction with life. RELIABILITY In our two studies, coefficient alpha  reliability values were .93 and .96 (Sutton et al., 2018). VALIDITY In previous research, the SOS was linked to hope, self-esteem, affect, mental health, and life satisfaction    (Young, Waehler, Laux, McDaniel, & Hilsenroth, 2003). Some validity findings based on positive correlations with other measures may be of interest to clinicians and researchers (Sutton et al. (2018).    Satisfaction with counseling .63    Likely to return to counse...

  What makes a test valid? is a tricky question.  The short, and rather obnoxious response is, “nothing.”  Like reliability , validity is a property of test scores  rather than tests but more accurately, an interpretation of the scores. But it is important to take the question seriously when test-takers and users are wondering how much confidence to place in a test score. As with many aspects of science, the answers can be simply stated but there is a complicated backstory. Validity Traditions For many, the traditional views of test score validity will be sufficient. Tests measure constructs. Scientific constructs are ideas that have features that can be measured like reading comprehension, dominance, short-term memory, and verbal intelligence. Construct validity is not a single entity but rather the current state of knowledge about how a test instrument’s scores have functioned in many settings and in relation to crite...

Photo by Geoff W. Sutton, 2017 Researchers define religious fundamentalism in different ways. One recent model focuses on the way religious people view their sacred text. I have written about the Intratextual Fundamentalism model in a previous post ( October 2013) . In this post, I provide some data related to the 5-item version of the Intratextual Fundamentalism Scale (IFS), which I have found useful in research projects. The revised version of the scale (IFS) has five items--each measuring a dimension of intratextuality (Williamson, Hood, Ahmad, Sadiq, & Hill, 2010). Here are the five dimensions (from my previous blog): Divine : The sacred text is a revelation from God (or of divine origin) to humans. Regardless of the involvement of people in the writing of the text, God (or a deity) is the author. Inerrant : The sacred text does not contain errors, inconsistencies, or contradictions. The text is objectively true. Privileged : The sacred text of the fundamentalist gr...

One way to think about the components of religion is three-dimensional, which includes  beliefs, practices, and experiences.  A few years ago, a group of us studied Christian counseling to discover what Christian counselors actually did that was different from other counselors (Sutton, Arnzen, & Kelly, 2016). We wanted to get more specific about the identity of Christian counselors--beyond a simple checklist of their affiliation with a large group such as Presbyterian or a movement such as Pentecostal. As part of our plan to be more specific about spirituality, we created a few measures.  Previously, I reported on a scale for assessing spiritual practices . This time I present a measure of beliefs, the Christian   Beliefs Index .             T he wording of the items clearly applies to the Christian faith, but the point of our measure was to be more precise about the diversity of beliefs within C...

Why aren't tests reliable? The reason tests are not reliable is that reliability is a property of the interpretation of scores not the tests themselves.   This isn't a matter of semantics. Think about it this way. Give all the students in one school an achievement test. The test items don't change so they appear stable, consistent, and reliable. However, when publishers report reliability values, they calculate the reliability statistics based on scores. Scores vary from one administration to another. If you ever took a test twice and got a different score, you know what I mean. Individuals change from day to day. And we change from year to year. Also, even a representative sample of students for a nation can be different each year. Every time we calculate a reliability statistic, the statistic is slightly different. Reliability values vary with the sample. Reliability values vary with the method of calculation. Reliability values also vary with the method us...

Portsmouth Cathedral, UK; April 2017, Geoff W. Sutton Spiritual Practices Index (SPI) In recent years, researchers have characterized religion and spirituality as ways people find meaning in their lives--that is, religion and spirituality as meaning making systems. It isn't surprising that researchers disagree on a way to define religion and spirituality that encompasses all similar activities. Meanwhile, researchers continue to study various dimensions of religion and spirituality. In this post I will introduce a short scale that might be helpful in research and possibly in a clinical setting. Although it was written to assess Christian Practices, I will suggest how it could be modified. One way to think about the components of faith is three-dimensional, which includes beliefs, practices, and experiences. A few years ago, a group of us studied Christian counseling to discover what Christian counselors actually did that was different from other counselors. We wanted to ge...