Incremental Validity in the Psychological Assessment of Children and Adolescents.

Abstract

Incremental validity in the process of psychological assessment of children and adolescents is explored. The authors highlight the dependence of the incremental validity of assessment information on factors such as goal of assessment, other information available, base rate of the problem or outcome, age or gender of the child, and type of problem being assessed. The authors discuss the incremental validity of assessment information from alternate sources, methods, and constructs. In view of the limited number of studies directly relevant to incremental validity in child clinical assessments, the authors call for more clinically relevant research. To have the greatest impact on child and adolescent services, this research must be readily generalized and immediately relevant to actual clinical practice.

A contextual approach to social skills assessment in the peer group: Who is the best judge?

“…Incremental validity broadly concerns the added prediction of different measures, methods, constructs, and informants (Johnston & Murray, 2003). In terms of the predictability of different informants of social behaviors, findings have been mixed.…”

“…For example, in response to peer provocation, aggression was perceived as more effective by youth than by teachers (Dirks et al, 2010), suggesting that the value and effectiveness of a social behavior might be perceived differently across informants. Increased knowledge in incremental validity also has meaningful implications for identifying the most effective and "accurate" source of information in making diagnoses and predicting adjustment outcomes (Johnston & Murray, 2003).…”

“…We speculated that, although both teacher-and peer-assessed social skills predict the outcomes of interest, the incremental validity of peer assessment of social skills might be particularly pronounced for social status. Findings of incremental validity are believed to shed light on a more sensitive source of information in children's social skills assessment (Hunsley & Meyer, 2003;Johnston & Murray, 2003).…”

Postmission Altruistic Identity Disruption Questionnaire (PostAID/Q): Identifying humanitarian-related distress during the reintegration period following international humanitarian aid work.

“…This creates a false impression of validity (Garb, 2003;Haynes & Lench, 2003;Hunsley, 2003;Hunsley & Meyer, 2003;Johnston & Murray, 2003). Future research would benefit from comparing the questionnaire data with other types of data, for example, clinician assessment and qualitative interviews.…”

An Evaluation of Functional Impairment among Children with Anxiety Disorders

“…Finally, it allows for the evaluation of incremental validity of the CGAS in relation to the CSR. Incremental validity refers to "the degree to which a measure explains or predicts a phenomenon of interest, relative to other measures" (Haynes & Lench, 2003, p. 456) and depends on the goal of the assessment, whether it is to improve diagnostic efficacy or evaluate treatment outcome (Johnston & Murray, 2003). Evaluating incremental validity of the CGAS can help to ascertain its utility in predicting impairment above and beyond measures of anxiety severity symptoms.…”