Assessing Reading Ability for Psychological Testing in Forensic Assessments: An Investigation with the WRAT-4 and MMPI-2-RF

The purpose of this study was to investigate informal phonological awareness measures as predictors of first-grade broad reading ability. Subjects were 91 former Head Start students who were administered standardized assessments of cognitive ability and receptive vocabulary, and informal phonological awareness measures during kindergarten and early first grade. Regression analyses indicated that three phonological awareness tasks, Invented Spelling, Categorization, and Blending, were the most predictive of standardized reading measures obtained at the end of first grade. Discriminant analyses indicated that these three phonological awareness tasks correctly identified at-risk students with 92% accuracy. Clinical use of a cutoff score for these measures is suggested, along with general intervention guidelines for practicing clinicians.

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The Evaluation of Instruction: Issues and Problems. M. C. Wittrock and David E. Wiley (Eds.)/Measurement and Evaluation. Frederick E. Brown/Educational Research—Reading in Focus. Irvin J. Lehmann and William A. Mehrens/Handbook in Research and Evaluation for Education and the Behavioral Sciences. Stephen Isaac in collaboration with William B. Michael/Research in Education: An Introduction. Billy Turney and George Robb/Evaluation in the Inner City. Thomas J. Fitzgibbon (Ed.)/CSE Elementary School Test Evaluations. Center for the Study of Evaluation/Essentials of Psychological Testing. (3rd ed.). Lee J. Cronbach

Measurement and Evaluation in Guidance ◽

10.1080/00256307.1971.12022501 ◽

1971 ◽

Vol 4 (3) ◽

pp. 184-187

Author(s):

Jacob G. Beard ◽

Fred Vallianos ◽

W. M. Eastman

Keyword(s):

Elementary School ◽

Inner City ◽

Educational Research ◽

Psychological Testing ◽

Behavioral Sciences ◽

Evaluation Of Instruction ◽

Research In Education ◽

Measurement And Evaluation

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Question Wording Effects in the Assessment of Global Self-Esteem

European Journal of Psychological Assessment ◽

10.1027//1015-5759.16.1.13 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. 13-19 ◽

Cited By ~ 31

Author(s):

Martin Dunbar ◽

Graeme Ford ◽

Kate Hunt ◽

Geoff Der

Keyword(s):

Reading Ability ◽

Factor Model ◽

Self Esteem ◽

Reading Scores ◽

Poor Reading ◽

Method Effect ◽

Two Samples ◽

Positive Item ◽

Method Effects ◽

Best Fit

Summary: Marsh (1996) produced evidence that method effects associated with negatively worded items might be responsible for the results of earlier factor analytic studies that reported finding positive and negative self-esteem factors in the Rosenberg Global self-esteem scale ( Rosenberg, 1965 ). He analyzed data collected from children using a 7-item self-esteem measure. This report details attempts to replicate Marsh 's analysis in data collected from two samples of adults who completed the full 10-item Global Self-Esteem (GSE) scale. The results reported here are similar to those given by Marsh in so much as a correlated uniquenesses model produced a superior fit to the data than the simple one factor model (without correlated uniquenesses) or the often reported two factor (positive and negative self-esteem) model. However, whilst Marsh reported that the best fit was produced by allowing negative item uniquenesses to correlate with each other, the model that produced the best fit to these data was one that contained correlated positive item uniquenesses. Supporting his claim that differential responding to negative and positive self-esteem items reflects a method effect associated with reading ability, Marsh also showed that factors associated with negative and positive items were most distinct among children who had poor reading scores. We report a similar effect among a sample of older adults where the correlation between these factors was compared across two groups who were selected according to their scores on a test of verbal reasoning.

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MMPI-2 in Child Custody Litigation

European Journal of Psychological Assessment ◽

10.1027/1015-5759/a000192 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 30 (2) ◽

pp. 110-116 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Paolo Roma ◽

Federica Ricci ◽

Georgios D. Kotzalidis ◽

Luigi Abbate ◽

Anna Lubrano Lavadera ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Child Custody ◽

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory ◽

Personality Inventory ◽

Custody Evaluations ◽

Self Presentation ◽

Female Population ◽

Clinical Scales ◽

Forensic Assessments ◽

Child Custody Evaluations ◽

Italian Women

In recent years, several studies have addressed the issue of positive self-presentation bias in assessing parents involved in postdivorce child custody litigations. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) is widely used in forensic assessments and is able to evaluate positive self-presentation through its Superlative Self-Presentation S scale. We investigated the existence of a gender effect on positive self-presentation bias in an Italian sample of parents involved in court evaluation. Participants were 391 divorced parents who completed the full 567-item Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 during child custody evaluations ordered by several Italian courts between 2006 and 2010. Our analysis considered the S scale along with the basic clinical scales. North-American studies had shown no gender differences in child custody litigations. Differently, our results showed a significantly higher tendency toward “faking-good” profiles on the MMPI-2 among Italian women as compared to men and as compared to the normative Italian female population. Cultural and social factors could account for these differences.

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