Selected views of family assessment: A commentary.

Comments on articles concerning family assessment by H. D. Grotevant (see record 1990-12120-001); R. B. Hampson et al (see record 1990-12122-001); D. C. Bell and L. G. Bell (see record 1990-12106-001); C. I. Carlson (see record 1990-12110-001); and T. L. Huston and J. K. Rempel (see record 1990-12126-001). It is suggested that theory needs to be related to research and practice more consistently. It would be useful to identify the principle theories in family science and critically examine the unique assessment issues raised by each perspective. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Content and style in personality assessment.

"It has been suggested that stylistic determinants, such as acquiescence, over-generalization, and a tendency to respond in a socially undesirable manner, as distinct from specific content, account for a large proportion of response variance on some personality scales, particularly the California F scale, the MMPI, and the California Psychological Inventory. Research involving response style may contribute to a more systematic measurement in personality and may pay off handsomely in helping to further the common ground between personality theory and personality assessment." 60 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward the assessment of social competence.

Describes 2 studies with 161 undergraduates (69 controls) directed toward development and validation of a self-report measure of social competence in dating and assertion situations. An 18-item questionnaire consisting of items that assessed the likelihood of certain specific behaviors occurring and the degree of discomfort and expected incompetence in specific situations was derived. This questionnaire discriminated between client and normal populations and between clients with dating and assertion problems, has psychometric properties of reliability and validity, and measures differential improvement following a variety of 3-wk intervention programs. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Challenges to the assessment of competence and competencies.

Challenges to the assessment of competence and competencies in professional psychology are discussed in this article. These include difficulties in defining competencies in precise and measurable terms; reaching agreement within the profession about the key elements of each competence domain; establishing an armamentarium of tools for assessing all components of competence, including the knowledge base, skills, and attitudes (and their integration); determining appropriate agreed-upon minimal levels of competence for individuals at different levels of professional development and when "competence problems" exist for individuals; assuring the fidelity of competency assessments; and establishing mechanisms for providing effective evaluative feedback and remediation. But even if these challenges can be met, perhaps the single biggest obstacle would be convincing those who are skeptical of the value of the culture shift toward the implementation of comprehensive competence assessments across the professional life span. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The assessment of competence in families with a retarded child.

60 families with retarded children were divided into 3 groups, based on age of the retarded child (6–8, 12–24, and 18–21 yrs). The families were observed by trained raters and compared with nonclinical families without handicapped children. Family reports from 45-min interviews were collected regarding feelings about the family's adaptation to the child and available support systems. Results indicate that most families were functioning well overall, despite speculations in older clinical literature about chronic family dysfunction. The older the retarded child, the more competent the family pattern; families with retarded children aged 6–8 yrs (school-entry age) and male retarded children were more dysfunctional. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Striving for competence in the assessment of competence: Psychology's professional education and credentialing journey of public accountability.

The history of psychology's development as a licensed profession is traced over the past 60 years through the evolution of the profession's quality control practices in education and credentialing. These two essential features of a profession began at about the same time, but evolved quite independent of one another for the first 30 years. Shaped by events of the 1970s and 1980s, however, there has been a gradual convergence of focus by those responsible for professional education and credentialing on how best to assess the quality of professional education programs and their graduates who apply for licensure. Although at first this focus was predominantly on the content of curriculum taught and the knowledge examined, increasingly over the past decade there has been a shift of emphasis to the broader, more complex construct of competence to practice for which examination of knowledge is a necessary but insufficient assessment. The article describes the events and structures that led to this outcome and concludes with comments about the future. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Guiding principles and recommendations for the assessment of competence.

This article presents guiding principles for the assessment of competence developed by the members of the American Psychological Association's Task Force on Assessment of Competence in Professional Psychology. These principles are applicable to the education, training, and credentialing of professional psychologists, and to practicing psychologists across the professional life span. The principles are built upon a review of competency assessment models, including practices in both psychology and other professions. These principles will help to ensure that psychologists reinforce the importance of a culture of competence. The implications of the principles for professional psychology also are highlighted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of theory in guiding family assessment.

Argues that family assessment in both research and clinical practice is most useful when it is explicitly guided by theory. The current state of theorizing about the family is considered, including psychological, sociological, and systemic perspectives. Links between theory and assessment are also discussed. The field of family psychology, which has a role to play in providing conceptual ground for researchers and clinicians from diverse disciplines interested in the family, is used as an example of how theory and assessment can be bridged. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A cross-contextual analysis of boys' social competence: From family to school.

Examined the extent to which the hostile attributions and coercive behaviors of mothers and sons were associated with indices of aggression, acceptance by peers, and teacher-rated social competence in the peer group. Ss were 104 married and divorced mothers and their sons (aged 7–9 yrs). Mothers' and sons' hostile attributions were significantly related to the coerciveness of their interactions, but only mothers' attributions related to reports of the children's aggression in the classroom. Boys who reported many stressful events in their lives behaved coercively with their mothers and were viewed as more aggressive and less socially competent with peers. The relation between stressful life events and the boys' aggression with their peers was mediated, in part, by boys' coerciveness with their mothers. The association between boys' coerciveness with their mothers and social acceptance by peers appeared to be mediated by the aggressiveness of their interactions with their peers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The family-school link: Methodological issues in studies of family processes related to children's school competence.

Describes 2 research projects (C. Carlson and C. R. Cooper, 1989 and K. Stark et al, 1991) linking family processes with children's competence in school as examples of methodological issues related to investigations that cross the systems of the family and school. Both projects were designed to inform the development of mental health interventions for children. The 1st study included parents and 6th-grade children of 58 intact families, 34 single-parent families, and 17 stepparent families from a middle school that served middle to upper-middle class homes. The 2nd study included 34 parents, 79 children, and teachers from 3 4th-grade classes in an elementary school that served a low-income, minority neighborhood. Issues discussed include gaining cooperation from the school, recruitment and consent procedures for families as Ss, data collection and measurement challenges, and family-school-researcher reciprocity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Levels of family assessment: II. Impact of maternal psychopathology on family functioning.

The association of maternal and contextual risk factors with whole-family, marital, and parent–child levels of family functioning was examined. Maternal mental illness and multiple contextual risk best predicted whole-family functioning, but each was related to marital and parent–child levels as well. Nonspecific indicators of maternal illness, rather than diagnostic category, were the better predictors of family functioning. The multiple contextual risk index was the variable most associated with all levels of family functioning, more so than any indicator of maternal illness. These results indicate (a) that maternal mental illness and family functioning are strongly associated and (b) that variation in the conceptualization and measurement strategy for risk and family functioning affects the conclusions of research. The importance of clear conceptualization of family levels and psychopathology risk in families of young children is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Theory and assessment in family psychology: Weak links.

Explores 3 possible reasons for the failure of the link between theory and assessment in family psychology. A primary reason for the failure is a lack of a multilevel unified theory of family functioning. A 2nd reason is that, in addition to multiple, uncoordinated theories, many family constructs are not yet refined enough for behavioral definitions. A 3rd problem in the connection of family theory to family assessment is the lack of attention to the measurement of change in family variables. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Proposed model for the assessment of children's social competence.

Highlights limitations of current approaches to the assessment of children's social competence (SOC) and proposes a conceptual model of SOC to serve as a framework for selecting an assessment methodology and to stimulate research on assessment. The model, based on an information-processing view of SOC, integrates social–cognitive and behavioral assessment strategies, distinguishes between the impact and specifying assessment levels, and links assessment data to intervention practices. A 3-stage assessment process for collecting data relevant to questions posed within the model is described. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A question of competence: The effects of competence and task feedback on intrinsic interest.

Examined whether competence information is the feedback feature that affects intrinsic motivation and whether perceived competence is the process responsible in 2 studies in which 174 undergraduates compared competence feedback with meaningful task feedback. In Study 1, positive competence feedback and task feedback were manipulated independently. Findings indicate that although positive feedback resulted in the highest level of perceived competence, both positive and task feedback enhanced interest individually. In Study 2, an ego-involvement manipulation emphasized competence prior to task engagement. Path-analytic techniques were used to identify 2 processes that mediated the effects of positive, negative, and task feedback on interest: perceived competence and personal valuation. Results indicate that perceived competence enhanced enjoyment only when performance quality was stressed by the ego-involvement manipulation. When competence was not made salient, subsequent interest depended more on the degree the individual personally valued involvement. Both studies indicate that competence information can affect both perceived competence and personal valuation. Feeling competent itself enhanced intrinsic motivation only if attaining competence was a primary goal of the task. (49 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Family assessment: Instrument dimensionality and correspondence across family reporters.

Based on the contention that clarifying the psychometric foundations of family instruments is essential to the field's future progress, the current study pursued 3 major aims: examining issues of instrument dimensionality; determining the generalizability of dimensional structures across whole-family, marital, and parent–child forms; and assessing the degree to which there is correspondence across different members' reports. Drawing on a community sample of intact families (N?=?192) and making use of a latent-variable approach, results provided support for a 3-dimensional framework (Affect, Activities, and Control) in accounting for score variance on whole-family, marital, and parent–child forms. Results indicated a significant degree of correspondence across different members' reports of these constructs for each family subsystem. Implications of these findings are discussed, and topics in need of further research attention are identified. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depressive attributional style in psychiatric inpatients: Effects of reinforcement level and assessment procedure.

Examined the effect of contextual variation on depressive attributional style in 42 psychiatric inpatients divided into depressed (mean age 36.43 yrs) and control (mean age 30.52 yrs) groups on the basis of their responses to the Beck Depression Inventory. Ss received 20%, 50%, or 80% reinforcement on a task. Three measurement variables were evaluated: (a) when the attributions were produced (during vs after the task), (b) how the attributions were made (generating vs selecting influences), and (c) who provided the dimensional scores (Ss vs raters). The expected group differences on the attributional composite occurred only under the 20 and 50% reinforcement conditions. Group differences were demonstrated only when Ss made attributions after the task (when Ss selected attributions from a list). However, when the Ss generated their own influences after the task, group differences emerged only when they and not the raters provided the dimensional scores. Findings suggest that depressive attributional style is dependent on contextual factors and parameters of measurement. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parental affective style risk and the family system: A social relations model analysis.

Social relations model analysis was used to clarify family dynamics associated with parental affective style, an index of parent-to-child behavior associated with severe psychopathology in the child. Results from 70 families who had sought clinical services for an adolescent family member (39 girls and 31 boys) suggest (1) that adolescents elicit the negative parental affective style that puts them at risk and (2) that elicitation of negative parental affect is strongly tied to adolescents' expression of negative affect toward their parents (i.e., a reciprocity effect). The findings support the views that children contribute to their own risk of psychopathology and that parent–child behavior ought to be interpreted in the broader context of the family system. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The FAMTOOL family health assessment tool

The purpose of this study was to design and validate a family health assessment tool (FAMTOOL) based on a concept analysis of family and health. Preliminary testing of this instrument by a convenience sample of 80 adults resulted in an internal consistency coefficient of .90. A retest 2 weeks later produced a stability coefficient of .96. The FAMTOOL provides rehabilitation nurses with a quick, positive assessment instrument for helping patients and their family members assess their own family's health, compare responses with each other, and see strengths they might not have considered otherwise. As the family health system should be included in the initial assessment of everyone entering the healthcare system, the FAMTOOL may prove helpful to nurses in a wide variety of primary, secondary, and tertiary settings.     

Sex differences in interaction style as a product of perceived sex differences in competence.

Observed the interaction styles of 72 male and 72 female university students while they worked in 4-person, mixed-sex groups on a discussion task. In some groups, Ss were only given information about each other's names and gender. In this circumstance, males were perceived by themselves and other group members to be higher in competence than females. Males also engaged in a greater amount of active task behavior than females, who exhibited a greater amount of positive social behavior than males. In other groups, Ss' competency-based status was manipulated by providing false feedback that they were high or low relative to their group in intellectual and moral aptitude. High-status Ss were then perceived to be more competent and engaged in more active task and less positive social behavior than low status ones. In this condition, no sex differences were obtained on perceived competence or on active task or positive social behavior. Findings support the idea that the gender differences obtained in interaction when status was not specified were partially a function of Ss' belief that the sexes differ in competence. (43 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)