Deck 13: Assessment Methods and Strategies

Question 1

Which of the following is an advantage of psychobiological measures?

A) Eliminates all artifacts from measurement
B) Easy and inexpensive to measure
C) Measures indices not accessible through other methods of measurement
D) Direct mapping of physiological measurements onto psychological constructs

Answer 1

Measures indices not accessible through other methods of measurement

Question 2

When can reactivity occur?

A) Whenever participants know they are being assessed
B) Whenever participants know the purpose of the assessment
C) Whenever participants do not know the purpose of the assessment
D) Whenever participants do not know they are being assessed

Answer 2

Whenever participants know they are being assessed

Question 3

What is the term used to describe the consistency of a measure?

A) Internal validity
B) Psychometric characteristics
C) Reliability
D) Sensitivity

Answer 3

Reliability

Question 4

To what does the sensitivity of a measure refer?

A) The capacity to reflect random variation within the experimental groups
B) The capacity to reflect systematic variation between the experimental groups
C) The capacity to detect ceiling or floor effects
D) The number of response options provided to participants

Question 5

Which of the following is a disadvantage of self-report inventories, questionnaires, and scales?

A) They only allow general conclusions to be made
B) They can be affected by biases of the participant
C) The information they provide is redundant with that from other methods
D) They are difficult to administer

Question 6

What are the psychometric characteristics of a measure?

A) Reliability and validity
B) Generalizability and generality
C) Sensitivity and reactivity
D) Convergence and divergence

Question 7

Which of the following is indicative of the social desirability bias?

A) Subjects are able to mask their true feelings when they are aware of the purpose of measurement
B) Choice of most socially appropriate, politically correct items to administer
C) Changes in self report responses before and after therapy due to exaggeration and underplaying of problems
D) Loose interpretation of items by subjects to present themselves in the best possible light

Question 8

Why might results be inconsistent across multiple measures?

A) Because different facets of a behavior might change at different rates
B) Because the measures are highly reliable
C) Because the measures share method variance
D) Because the domain being measured is unidimensional

Question 9

What is the purpose of a multitrait-multimethod matrix?

A) To assess which constructs are related to other constructs
B) To assess reliability and construct validity
C) To assess concurrent and predictive validity
D) To assess convergent and divergent validity

Question 10

Which of the following is an important consideration in selecting measures for use in an investigation?

A) Selecting measures that will be easy for participants to complete
B) Selecting measures that have high face validity
C) Selecting measures that vary in methods of measurement
D) Selecting measures that are similar in methodological characteristics

Question 11

Which of the following is an advantage of global ratings?

A) Ease of interpretation
B) They provide a summary evaluation
C) High in sensitivity
D) They have frequently been well validated

Question 12

What is the difference between obtrusiveness and reactivity?

A) Obtrusiveness is when participants know they are being assessed and reactivity is when participants' awareness influences their performance
B) Obtrusiveness is when participants' awareness influences their performance, and reactivity is when participants know they are being assessed
C) Obtrusiveness is when the assessment is expensive to the participant, and reactivity is when that expense influences participants' performance
D) Obtrusiveness is when the expense of assessment influences participants' performance, and reactivity is when the assessment is expensive to the participant

Question 13

Why is construct validity an important consideration in selecting an assessment measure?

A) To ensure that the measure assesses what it purports to assess
B) To ensure that the investigator assesses the appropriateness of the construct they wish to measure
C) To ensure that the content of the items reflects the construct of interest
D) To ensure that scores on the measures are consistent across time

Question 14

Why is the use of common and consistent measures beneficial in a research investigation?

A) To protect against multiple methods of assessment
B) To demonstrate that the measures may be used with different samples
C) To avoid concerns of construct validity
D) To permit comparison of results across studies

Question 15

What is the purpose of using multiple measures in an investigation?

A) To increase the reliability of each of the individual measures
B) To increase the statistical conclusion validity of an investigation
C) To ensure that results are not restricted to the construct as assessed by a particular measure
D) To investigate the artifacts associated with each of the individual measures