Ethics in Assessment
Assessment is defined as the evaluation or estimation of the nature, quality, or ability of someone or something. Psychological assessments are typically a judgmental process where a broad range of information is gathered ( including psychological tests) and integrated to develop an understanding of a person. Assessments are used for a wide variety of purposes and covers various topics. One topic I decided to to take a closer look at is assessment of substance abuse disorders. The purpose of assessment in this topic is to define the nature of the problem, determining a diagnosis, and developing a treatment plan. These assessments provide information for use by drug and alcohol counselors, primary healthcare providers, …show more content…
Self report is the most widely used because they are more flexible and inexpensive of the methods. The major criticism of self report is the reliability and validity. Self reports are not deemed unreliable or invalid, but is frequently criticized because accuracy of self reports vary widely. Biological measures are also another common method used. This method includes blood tests, urine, and breathe tests. This method is usually preferred more than self reports because they are objective and have less biases. Biological measures have a set of issues as well because they detect only recent use, can be tampered with, and does not measure whether the use is severe or chronic or one time. Collateral reports are a less expensive, flexible and less invasive method. Collateral reports collects information about the individual’s characteristics, substance use, and functioning. A problem with this method is there is variability due to many factors such as length of time, history, setting, and the collateral source sample used. Each of the methods used for assessing substance abuse have strengths and weaknesses present. Several methodological issues exist because of the absence of a standard. Failure to using a common set of assessment measures leads to wide variations of assessment instruments and has led to few attempts to replicate psychometric evaluations
Assessment is defined as the evaluation or estimation of the nature, quality, or ability of someone or something. Psychological assessments are typically a judgmental process where a broad range of information is gathered ( including psychological tests) and integrated to develop an understanding of a person. Assessments are used for a wide variety of purposes and covers various topics. One topic I decided to to take a closer look at is assessment of substance abuse disorders. The purpose of assessment in this topic is to define the nature of the problem, determining a diagnosis, and developing a treatment plan. These assessments provide information for use by drug and alcohol counselors, primary healthcare providers, …show more content…
Self report is the most widely used because they are more flexible and inexpensive of the methods. The major criticism of self report is the reliability and validity. Self reports are not deemed unreliable or invalid, but is frequently criticized because accuracy of self reports vary widely. Biological measures are also another common method used. This method includes blood tests, urine, and breathe tests. This method is usually preferred more than self reports because they are objective and have less biases. Biological measures have a set of issues as well because they detect only recent use, can be tampered with, and does not measure whether the use is severe or chronic or one time. Collateral reports are a less expensive, flexible and less invasive method. Collateral reports collects information about the individual’s characteristics, substance use, and functioning. A problem with this method is there is variability due to many factors such as length of time, history, setting, and the collateral source sample used. Each of the methods used for assessing substance abuse have strengths and weaknesses present. Several methodological issues exist because of the absence of a standard. Failure to using a common set of assessment measures leads to wide variations of assessment instruments and has led to few attempts to replicate psychometric evaluations