Guidelines, criteria, and rules of thumb for evaluating normed and standardized assessment instruments in psychology.

Abstract

In the context of the development of prototypic assessment instruments in the areas of cognition, personality, and adaptive functioning, the issues of standardization, norming procedures, and the important psychometrics of test reliability and validity are evaluated critically. Criteria, guidelines, and simple rules of thumb are provided to assist the clinician faced with the challenge of choosing an appropriate test instrument for a given psychological assessment. Clinicians are often faced with the critical challenge of choosing the most appropriate available test instrument for a given psychological assessment of a child, adolescent, or adult of a particular age, gender, and class of disability. It is the purpose of this report to provide some criteria, guidelines, or simple rules of thumb to aid in this complex scientific decision. As such, it draws upon my experience with issues of test development, standardization, norming procedures, and important psychometrics, namely, test reliability and validity. As I and my colleagues noted in an earlier publication, the major areas of psychological functioning, in the normal development of infants, children, adolescents, adults, and elderly people, include cognitive, academic, personality, and adaptive behaviors (Sparrow, Fletcher, & Cicchetti, 1985). As such, the major examples or applications discussed in this article derive primarily, although not exclusively, from these several areas of human functioning.