psy121 - Psychological assessment and diagnostics (Complete module description)

psy121 - Psychological assessment and diagnostics (Complete module description)

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Module label Psychological assessment and diagnostics
Modulkürzel psy121
Credit points 12.0 KP
Workload 360 h
Institute directory Department of Psychology
Verwendbarkeit des Moduls
  • Master's Programme Neurocognitive Psychology (Master) >
Zuständige Personen
  • Hildebrandt, Andrea (module responsibility)
  • Hildebrandt, Andrea (Prüfungsberechtigt)
  • Hellmann, Andreas (Prüfungsberechtigt)
  • Roheger, Mandy (Prüfungsberechtigt)
  • Debener, Stefan (Module counselling)
Prerequisites
Enrolment in Master's programme Neurocognitive Psychology.
Skills to be acquired in this module
Goals of module:
Students will acquire specific knowledge about psychological assessment, test theory and test construction, and will be trained to utilize this knowledge within a research or test development context and in applied settings. With respect to research applications they will learn about traditional and modern test theories and about their usage in the domain of applied psychometrics and the systematic design of interviews and observational methods. From the perspective of applied assessment, students will reflect on the assessment process as a whole. They will learn how to analyze cases (“case conceptualization”), how to plan and conduct the information assessment phase, how to record and summarize collected data and how to integrate across the multitude of information in order to draw conclusions about the case given specific diagnostic strategies (status vs. process assessment and norm oriented vs. criterion oriented assessment, including classificatory decisions). Finally, students will learn about the requirements of test and assessment report generation in written an oral form given a specific applied context. Ethical guidelines and quality norms will be an implicit topic in all courses in the module.

Competencies:
+ Neuropsychological / neurophysiological knowledge
+ interdisciplinary kowledge & thinking
+ ethics / good scientific practice / professional behavior
+ critical & analytical thinking
Module contents
Part 1: Introduction to Psychological Assessment (lecture): winter and summer
• Psychological assessment as a decision process – descriptive and prescriptive models
• Introduction to test theories (will be detailed in Part 3)
• Assessment methods, their construction and design, quality criteria
• The logic of decision making in the assessment process
• Classificatory decisions
• Psychometrics to single cases
• Summarizing results and writing reports

Part 2: Test Theory and Test Construction (lecture): winter and summer

• Classical test theory
• Generalizability theory
• Latent-State and Trait theory
• Latent variable models for different types of item responses
• Measurement invariance across groups and time
• Network modeling in psychometrics
• Preference modeling for constructing faking-resistant questionnaires and tests

Part 3: applied seminars: winter and summer (choose a or b)
a: The Assessment Process Applied OR
• Case conceptualization (neuropsychology and clinical psychology)
• Formulating hypotheses
• Selecting assessment procedures and planning administration
• Deciding upon decision rules for data integration
• Evaluating the application of assessment procedures
• Analyzing, summarizing and visualizing results
• Integrating results based on the decision rules
• Writing a psychological/assessment report
• Discussing a report with the client

b: Test Construction Applied
• Construct conceptualization
• Deciding upon the response format
• Item mining
• Item analysis
• Test quality report and test manual

Part 4: Assessment in Clinical Neuropsychology (seminar): summer
• specific knowledge
• exercises in testing / practising tests

Literaturempfehlungen
Will be specified in the courses.
Links
Language of instruction English
Duration (semesters) 2 Semester
Module frequency The module will start every winter term.
Module capacity unlimited
Type of module Pflicht / Mandatory
Module level MM (Mastermodul / Master module)
Teaching/Learning method Part 1 and 2: 2 lectures ; Part 3 and 4: seminars
Previous knowledge You should know basic statistical concepts as they are also covered in the introductory course statistics. Multivariate statistics is a prerequisite for the psychometric track.
Form of instruction Comment SWS Frequency Workload of compulsory attendance
Lecture 4 SoSe und WiSe 56
Seminar 4 SoSe und WiSe 56
Präsenzzeit Modul insgesamt 112 h
Examination Prüfungszeiten Type of examination
Final exam of module
Parts of the practical exercise need to be completed and handed in at specific dates during winter and summer term.
The module will be tested by a practical exercise (test application and protocol / test construction).

Required active participation for gaining credits:
  • 1-2 presentations or test executions
  • handing in parts of the final report during the term
  • participation in discussions on other presentations
  • attendance of at least 70% in the seminars (will be checked in StudIP).