Evidence-based assessment (EBA) refers to the use of

research Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness ...

and

theory A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may ...

to guide the selection of constructs to be used for a specific assessment purpose and to inform the methods and measures used in the assessment process. It involves the recognition that, even with data from psychometrically strong measures, the assessment process is inherently a decision-making task in which the clinician must iteratively formulate and test hypotheses by integrating data that are often incomplete and consistent. EBA has been found to help clinicians in cognitively debiasing their clinical decisions. Evidence-based assessment is part of a larger movement towards

evidence-based practices Evidence-based practice (EBP) is the idea that occupational practices ought to be based on scientific evidence. While seemingly obviously desirable, the proposal has been controversial, with some arguing that results may not specialize to indiv ...

. EBA was first introduced in the field of

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...

, and has been introduced to other fields, notably

clinical psychology Clinical psychology is an integration of social science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and persona ...

. The EBA approach is widely acknowledged to be an empirically driven method to clinical decision-making, and

Cochrane review Cochrane (previously known as the Cochrane Collaboration) is a British international charitable organisation formed to organise medical research findings to facilitate evidence-based choices about health interventions involving health professi ...

s have reported the efficacy of EBA methods.

History and development

Limitations

Test selection and inadequate assessment

While numerous guidelines have been developed to assist psychologists in conducting EBAs, psychologists often fail to follow guidelines, with projective tests often used to assess child adjustment. Professionals conducting assessment have been shown to have considerable variability in the extent to which they followed professional guidelines, with evaluators failing to assess general parenting abilities.

Problems in test interpretation

Professionals and authorities commonly mistakenly recommend the interpretation of variability between and within scales that may not be vigorously tested. For instance, due to rigorous efforts in developing norms, and developing

reliability Reliability, reliable, or unreliable may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Computing * Data reliability (disambiguation), a property of some disk arrays in computer storage * High availability * Reliability (computer networking), a ...

and validity measures, certain measures, such as the

Wechsler intelligence scale The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) is an IQ test designed to measure intelligence and cognitive ability in adults and older adolescents. The original WAIS (Form I) was published in February 1955 by David Wechsler, as a revision of the ...

s for both adults and children, are seen as the strongest psychological instruments around. It is common practice for authorities to recommend the consideration of subtest scores. However, subtest scores, unlike full-scale IQ scores, often have lower levels of

internal consistency In statistics and research, internal consistency is typically a measure based on the correlations between different items on the same test (or the same subscale on a larger test). It measures whether several items that propose to measure the same g ...

, which results in reduced precision of measurement and increased likelihood of false positive and false negative conclusions about the assessment.

References

{{Psychology Evidence-based medicine Psychological testing Mental disorders screening and assessment tools Evidence-based practices