Abstract
There is little guidance and much variability regarding the description of psychological measures and their associated psychometric evidence in scientific reports in psychology. This hinders the ability of the reader to properly evaluate the degree to which these measures actually measure what the authors intend to measure. This chapter advocates for a more standardized approach to reporting the psychometric evidence that is based on five key principles. In reference to the psychometric evidence of a measure used in a scientific report, the write-up should: (a) argue what are the most relevant psychometric dimensions; (b) acknowledge the multidimensional nature of psychometric evidence; (c) acknowledge any missing and conflicting psychometric data; (d) present quantified psychometric information; and (e) acknowledge the conditional nature of the psychometric evidence across sample characteristics, dimensions of individual differences, and assessment contexts. A case example is provided to exemplify the use of these principles in a scientific report in psychology.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
American Psychological Association. (2011). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). American Psychological Association.
Bond, F. W., & Bunce, D. (2003). The role of acceptance and job control in mental health, job satisfaction, and work performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 1057–1067.
Gámez, W., Chmielewski, M., Kotov, R., Ruggero, C., & Watson, C. (2011). Development of a measure of experiential avoidance: The multidimensional experiential avoidance questionnaire. Psychological Assessment, 23, 692–713. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0023242
Goldberg, D. (1978). Manual of the general health questionnaire. Windsor: National Foundation for Educational Research.
Gross, A. (1996). The rhetoric of science. Harvard University Press.
Hayes, S. C., Bissett, R., Roget, N., Padilla, M., Kohlenberg, B. S., Fisher, G., Masuda, A., Pistorello, J., Rye, A. K., Berry, K., & Niccolls, R. (2004). The impact of acceptance and commitment training and multicultural training on the stigmatizing attitudes and professional burnout of substance abuse counselors. Behavior Therapy, 35, 821–836.
Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (2012). Acceptance and commitment therapy: The process and practice of mindful change (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K., Wilson, K. G., Bissett, R. T., Pistorello, J., Toarmino, D., … Stewart, S. H. (2004). Measuring experiential avoidance: A preliminary test of a working model. The Psychological Record, 54(4), 553–578.
Haynes, S. N., Kaholokula, J. K. A., & Tanaka-Matsumi, J. (2018). Psychometric foundations of psychological assessment with diverse cultures: What are the concepts, methods, and evidence? In Cultural competence in applied psychology (pp. 441–472). Springer.
Haynes, S. N., Smith, G., & Hunsley, J. R. (2019). Scientific foundations of clinical assessment (2nd ed.). Taylor and Francis/Routledge.
Hunsley, J., & Mash, E. J. (Eds.). (2019). A guide to assessments that work (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
Masuda, A., Hayes, S. C., Fletcher, L. B., Seignourel, P. J., Bunting, K., Herbst, S. A., … Lillis, J. (2007). Impact of acceptance and commitment therapy versus education on stigma toward people with psychological disorders. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 45(11), 2764–2772.
Popper, K.R. (1957). The logic of scientific discovery. Open Court.
Tyndall, I., Waldeck, D., Pancani, L., Whelan, R., Roche, B., & Dawson, D. L. (2019). The Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (AAQ-II) as a measure of experiential avoidance: Concerns over discriminant validity. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 12, 278–284.
Wolgast, M. (2014). What does the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ-II) really measure? Behavior Therapy, 45(6), 831–839.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
O’Donohue, W., Masuda, A., Haynes, S.N. (2022). Presenting the Psychometric Evidence for Psychological Measures: A Proposal and Thoughts on Questionable Research Practices. In: O'Donohue, W., Masuda, A., Lilienfeld, S. (eds) Avoiding Questionable Research Practices in Applied Psychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04968-2_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04968-2_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-04967-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-04968-2
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)