Assessing Adolescents in Educational, Counseling, and Other Settings PDF
Preview Assessing Adolescents in Educational, Counseling, and Other Settings
Page iii Assessing Adolescents in Educational, Counseling, and Other Settings Robert D. Hoge Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS 1999 Mahwah, New Jersey London Page iv Copyright © 1999 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by photostat, microfilm, retrieval system, or any other means, without prior written permission of the publisher. <Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers 10 Industrial Avenue Mahwah, NJ 07430 Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Hoge, Robert D. Assessing adolescents in educational, counseling, and other settings Robert D. Hoge. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 0805830944 (alk. paper) 1. Teenagers—Psychological testing. 2. Youth—Psychological testing. I. Title. BF724.25.H64 1999 155.5'028'7—dc21 9841565 CIP Books published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates are printed on acidfree paper, and their bindings are chosen for strength and durability Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Page v CONTENTS Preface vii 1 Introduction 1 Part I An Introduction to Contemporary Research and Theory On Adolescence 13 2 The Analysis of Adolescent Development 15 3 Identifying and Treating Problem Behavior in Adolescents 41 Part II An Introduction to Psychological Assessment 63 4 Basic Concepts in Assessment 65 5 Practical and Ethical Issues in Assessment 83 Part III Assessment Instruments 107 6 Measures of Aptitudes and Achievement 109 7 Personality Tests 136 8 The Interview 157 Page vi 9 Behavioral Ratings and Checklists 176 10 Rating and Questionnaire Measures of Attitudes, Values, Interests and Cognition 198 11 Composite and Environmental Measures 219 12 Conclusions and Recommendations 246 Appendix: Addresses for Major Test Publishers 264 References 266 Author Index 293 Subject Index 303 Page vii PREFACE The goal of this book is to explore the role of standardized psychological assessments in the treatment of young people in educational, counseling, forensic, and other settings. A basic argument is that standardized assessments provide a better basis for assessing individuals than the informal and unsystematic procedures commonly used in schools, agencies, clinics, and practitioners' offices, and that in turn, more valid assessments lead to better decisions about possible courses of action. This argument is more fully developed in the coming chapters. Why focus on the assessment of adolescents? First, adolescence is a distinct development period and youths in the teen years display somewhat different risk and need factors than younger and older groups. We know this from experience and from a large body of theory and research on adolescent development. Second, most texts and handbooks on psychological assessment either concentrate on adults or lump together younger children and adolescents. In both cases, there is a relative neglect of assessment issues specific to adolescents. The book is directed toward three audiences. The first group includes mental health professionals involved in the conduct and interpretation of psychological assessments of adolescents. This group is composed primarily of psychologists, but other professionals such as psychiatrists, social workers, educators, and child care workers are sometimes involved as well. The second group includes professionals who may be required to use the results of psychological assessments in their decision making. School principals, youth court judges, and managers of residential treatment facilities are three exemplars of such professionals. This book should help them understand the purposes and procedures of psychological assessments, as well as the associated strengths and weaknesses. The third group includes developmental researchers interested in adolescents. They may benefit from the review of standardized assessment tools presented in the book. Page viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Some of the research on which this book is based has been supported by funds from Health Canada's Strategic Fund for Children's Mental Health, the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services, and Carleton University. I also wish to thank Lynda Robertson and Marlo Gal for their assistance in the preparation of the manuscript. As well, I am grateful for the excellent editorial support provided to me at Lawrence Erlbaum Associates by Susan Milmoe, Kathryn Scornavacca, and Teresa Horton. Finally, I wish to extend gratitude to the many students, colleagues, and family members who have supported my work over the years. Page 1 1— INTRODUCTION This book is based on three key propositions. First, the effectiveness of any educational, therapeutic, or counseling intervention depends at least in part on the quality of the assessment on which it is based. For example, a decision to provide a youth with a program of behavior modification treatment for depression would be appropriate to the extent that it reflects the actual emotional state of the youth and other characteristics that would affect his or her reactions to this treatment. Similarly, the ultimate success of a decision to counsel a youth to follow an academic stream in secondary school will be limited by the accuracy of the initial assessment of the student's aptitudes and interests. Second, standardized psychological assessments and structured diagnostic procedures are more likely to yield valid information about an individual than the informal and unsystematic assessments so often employed in clinical, counseling, and educational settings. There is certainly a role for experienced clinical judgments in the treatment of clients, but, as I try to show in later sections of the book, standardized psychological assessments provide a firmer and more defensible foundation for diagnostic and decisionmaking activities. Third, assessment tools and procedures should be appropriate for the individual being assessed. I have chosen in this book to focus on the assessment of adolescents because I believe that this group often exhibits characteristics and circumstances that set them apart from children and adults. Further, these unique features mean that, in many cases, assessments and interventions appropriate for younger and older age groups may not be indicated. This point is reinforced in the discussion of theory and research on adolescence that follows. Page 2 Defining Adolescence The terms adolescent and adolescence are ubiquitous in our language, and we use them with absolute confidence. However, closer examination reveals a great deal of ambiguity in their meaning, and, in fact, historians and social scientists have argued for a very long time over alternative definitions of the construct. The word adolescence derives from the Latin adolescentia, which refers to the process of growing or growing up. It does not have any referent to an age range in Latin, but the Oxford English Dictionary indicates that it first appeared in English in the middle of the 15th century as a term referring to a young man. The current use of the term to refer generally to the teen years apparently evolved from that time. We do generally refer to the teen years as the period of adolescence and a youth in that age range as an adolescent. However, establishing more precise criteria for defining this developmental period is quite difficult. One approach to definition is in terms of physical development. In this case the beginning of adolescence is said to correspond to the onset of puberty when primary and secondary sexual developments make their first appearance. This process is guided by hormonal changes and accompanied by other significant physical changes. I show later in this volume that the physical events associated with the progress toward sexual maturity do have important consequences for the development of youth during the early years. On the other hand, there are some problems with using these physical changes to delimit the period of adolescence. First, there is considerable variability both between and within the genders with respect to the period of onset of puberty. Menarche, for example, may appear as early as age 91/2 in some girls and as late as age 161/2 in others. Further, the age of onset of puberty is generally about 2 years earlier in girls than boys. Second, delineating the end of the adolescent period by the achievement of sexual maturity is not particularly meaningful. Most young people achieve sexual maturity before what we would consider emotional maturity. Third, many of the psychological processes popularly associated with adolescence do not relate in any direct fashion to the onset or achievement of sexual maturity. For example, the beginning of dating behavior, typically associated with early adolescence in Western society, sometimes appears before any signs of sexual development. A second approach to definition of adolescence is in terms of singular psychological processes that appear to mark a transition from childhood at one extreme to adulthood at the other. Certainly there are popular assumptions in this regard. Thus, the onset of adolescence is presumably marked by efforts to achieve independence from adult influence, to form a stable identity, to develop a gender role, and by other processes and events thought unique to this age period. Page 3 There are some problems with this approach as well. One difficulty is that there is no real agreement over the nature of these psychological processes. Rather, as I address in chapters 2 and 3, a variety of hypotheses have been advanced. This variety makes it nearly impossible to develop an explicit definition of adolescence purely on the basis of psychological processes. A second difficulty is that the psychological approach has tended to ignore the operation of historical and social forces. We now know that this is a mistake. It is clear that the psychological experiences of youths (and even their physical development to some extent) are very much affected by their social environment. The dynamics of home, school, and community have a very direct impact on the course of their psychological development: Adolescence (or the broader category of youth) can be fully understood only when viewed within the life course and its historical setting. Each generalized stage, or age category, is constructed from norms and institutional constraints that establish a basis for identity and specify appropriate behaviors, roles, and timetables. (Elder, 1980; p. 6) This also means that the nature of the adolescent experience will vary across time and across cultures. Therefore, the search for a universal psychological definition of adolescence is complicated. In spite of these reservations, I show in chapters 2 and 3 that continuing efforts are being made to discover and analyze physical and psychological processes particularly relevant to youths in the teen years. For the purposes of this book, then, the term adolescence will generally be used to refer to the period from 11 to 19 years of age, but we must keep in mind the limitations associated with any efforts to generalize across all youths within that age range. Nature of the Assessment Process We tend to take for granted assessment activities, but it should be understood that they underlie all decisions about individuals and the quality of our assessments places limits on the effectiveness of our decisions. These issues are explored in chapters 4 and 5, but some introduction to the main points is appropriate. The assessment process involves three steps: (a) the collection of information about an individual, (b) the translation of that information into an inference or judgment, and (c) the use of the inference or judgment as the basis for a decision. The inferences or judgments are often referred to as assessments or diagnoses. These are sometimes expressed in qualitative
Description:The list of books you might like
