Explore the vast range of titles available.

Antecedentes: los test son los instrumentos de medida más utilizados por los psicólogos para la obtención de muestras de comportamiento de las personas, tanto en contextos profesionales como en investigación. El objetivo del presente trabajo es sintetizar en diez pasos los aspectos fundamentales que hay que tener en cuenta a la hora de construir un test de forma rigurosa. Método: para la elaboración de las diez fases propuestas se revisó la literatura psicométrica especializada y se actualizaron trabajos previos de los autores sobre el tema. Resultados: se proponen diez pasos para la construcción objetiva de un test: delimitación del marco general, definición de la variable a medir, especificaciones, construcción de los ítems, edición del test, estudios piloto, selección de otros instrumentos de medida, aplicación de la prueba, propiedades psicométricas y desarrollo de la versión final. Conclusión: siguiendo los diez pasos propuestos, se pueden construir test objetivos con propiedades psicométricas adecuadas apoyadas en evidencias empíricas.

Context:Test-driven development (TDD) is an agile software development approach that has been widely claimed to improve software quality. However, the extent to which TDD improves quality appears to be largely dependent upon the characteristics of the study in which it is evaluated (e.g., the research method, participant type, programming environment, etc.). The particularities of each study make the aggregation of results untenable.Objectives:The goal of this paper is to: increase the accuracy and generalizability of the results achieved in isolated experiments on TDD, provide joint conclusions on the performance of TDD across different industrial and academic settings, and assess the extent to which the characteristics of the experiments affect the quality-related performance of TDD.Method:We conduct a family of 12 experiments on TDD in academia and industry. We aggregate their results by means of meta-analysis. We perform exploratory analyses to identify variables impacting the quality-related performance of TDD.Results:TDD novices achieve a slightly higher code quality with iterative test-last development (i.e., ITL, the reverse approach of TDD) than with TDD. The task being developed largely determines quality. The programming environment, the order in which TDD and ITL are applied, or the learning effects from one development approach to another do not appear to affect quality. The quality-related performance of professionals using TDD drops more than for students. We hypothesize that this may be due to their being more resistant to change and potentially less motivated than students.Conclusion:Previous studies seem to provide conflicting results on TDD performance (i.e., positive vs. negative, respectively). We hypothesize that these conflicting results may be due to different study durations, experiment participants being unfamiliar with the TDD process, or case studies comparing the performance achieved by TDD vs. the control approach (e.g., the waterfall model), each applied to develop a different system. Further experiments with TDD experts are needed to validate these hypotheses.

The number of test translations and adaptations has risen exponentially over the last two decades, and these processes are now becoming a common practice. The International Test Commission (ITC) Guidelines for Translating and Adapting Tests (Second Edition, 2017) offer principles and practices to ensure the quality of translated and adapted tests. However, they are not specific to the cognitive processes examined with clinical neuropsychological measures. The aim of this publication is to provide a specialized set of recommendations for guiding neuropsychological test translation and adaptation procedures. The International Neuropsychological Society's Cultural Neuropsychology Special Interest Group established a working group tasked with extending the ITC guidelines to offer specialized recommendations for translating/adapting neuropsychological tests. The neuropsychological application of the ITC guidelines was formulated by authors representing over ten nations, drawing upon literature concerning neuropsychological test translation, adaptation, and development, as well as their own expertise and consulting colleagues experienced in this field. A summary of neuropsychological-specific commentary regarding the ITC test translation and adaptation guidelines is presented. Additionally, examples of applying these recommendations across a broad range of criteria are provided to aid test developers in attaining valid and reliable outcomes. Establishing specific neuropsychological test translation and adaptation guidelines is critical to ensure that such processes produce reliable and valid psychometric measures. Given the rapid global growth experienced in neuropsychology over the last two decades, the recommendations may assist researchers and practitioners in carrying out such endeavors.

Premorbid tests estimate cognitive ability prior to neurological condition onset or brain injury. Tests requiring oral pronunciation of visually presented irregular words, such as the National Adult Reading Test (NART), are commonly used due to robust evidence that word familiarity is well-preserved across a range of neurological conditions and correlates highly with intelligence. Our aim is to examine the prediction limits of NART variants to assess their ability to accurately estimate premorbid IQ. We examine the prediction limits of 13 NART variants, calculate which IQ classification system categories are reachable in principle, and consider the proportion of the adult population in the target country falling outside the predictable range. Many NART variants cannot reach higher or lower IQ categories due to floor/ceiling effects and inherent limitations of linear regression (used to convert scores to predicted IQ), restricting clinical accuracy in evaluating premorbid ability (and thus the magnitude of impairment). For some variants this represents a sizeable proportion of the target population. Since both higher and lower IQ categories are unreachable in principle, we suggest that future NART variants consider polynomial or broken-stick fitting (or similar methods) and suggest that prediction limits should be routinely reported.

Despite the current need for reliable and valid test instruments in different countries in order to monitor the sign language acquisition of deaf children, very few tests are commercially available that offer strong evidence for their psychometric properties. This mirrors the current state of affairs for many sign languages, where very little research is available. No previous empirical study has focused explicitly on the linguistic, methodological, and theoretical issues involved in the process of adapting a test from a source sign language to a target sign language. Problems during the adaptation process can arise from linguistic differences between the source and the target language and differences in the source and the target cultures. Both are important aspects that need to be considered in the adaptation of a sign language test from a source to a target language. This study proposes a model for sign language test adaptation, based on the adaptation of the British Sign Language Receptive Skills Test to German Sign Language. The model includes different methodological steps, with a particular focus on construct validation. (Verlag).

ABSTRACTObjectivesResearch shows that mental demands at work affect later-life cognitive functioning and dementia risk, but systematic assessment of protective mental work demands (PMWDs) is still missing. The goal of this research was to develop a questionnaire to assess PMWDs. DesignThe instrument was developed in accordance with internationally recognized scientific standards comprising conceptualization, pretesting, and validation via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), principal component analysis (PCA), and multiple regression analyses. ParticipantsWe included 346 participants, 72.3% female, with an average age of 56.3 years. MeasurementItem pool, sociodemographic questions, and cognitive tests: Trail-Making Test A/B, Word List Recall, Verbal Fluency Test, Benton Visual Retention Test, Reading Minds in the Eyes Test. ResultsCFAs of eight existing PMWD-concepts revealed weaker fit indices than PCA of the item pool that resulted in five concepts. We computed multivariate regression analyses with all 13 PMWD-concepts as predictors of cognitive functioning. After removing PMWD-concepts that predicted less than two cognitive test scores and excluding others due to overlapping items, the final questionnaire contained four PMWD-concepts: Mental Workload (three items, Cronbach’s α =.58), Verbal Demands (four, Cronbach’s α =.74), Information Load (six, Cronbach’s α =.83), and Extended Job Control (six, Cronbach’s α =.83). ConclusionsThe PMWD-Questionnaire intends to assess protective mental demands at the workplace. Information processing demands and job control make up the primary components emphasizing their relevance regarding cognitive health in old age. Long-term follow-up studies will need to validate construct validity with respect to dementia risk.

This study examines the efficacy of artificial intelligence (AI) in creating parallel test items compared to human-made ones. Two test forms were developed: one consisting of 20 existing human-made items and another with 20 new items generated with ChatGPT assistance. Expert reviews confirmed the content parallelism of the two test forms. Forty-three university students then completed the 40 test items presented randomly from both forms on a final test. Statistical analyses of student performance indicated comparability between the AI-human-made and human-made test forms. Despite limitations such as sample size and reliance on classical test theory (CTT), the findings suggest ChatGPT’s potential to assist teachers in test item creation, reducing workload and saving time. These results highlight ChatGPT’s value in educational assessment and emphasize the need for further research and development in this area.

Background Eliminating Plasmodium vivax will require targeting the hidden liver-stage reservoir of hypnozoites. This necessitates new interventions balancing the benefit of reducing vivax transmission against the risk of over-treating some individuals with drugs which may induce haemolysis. By measuring antibodies to a panel of vivax antigens, a strategy of serological-testing-and-treatment ( Pv SeroTAT) can identify individuals with recent blood-stage infections who are likely to carry hypnozoites and target them for radical cure. This provides a potential solution to selectively treat the vivax reservoir with 8-aminoquinolines. Methods Pv SeroTAT can identify likely hypnozoite carriers with ~80% sensitivity and specificity. Diagnostic test sensitivities and specificities ranging 50–100% were incorporated into a mathematical model of vivax transmission to explore how they affect the risks and benefits of different Pv SeroTAT strategies involving hypnozoiticidal regimens. Risk was measured as the rate of overtreatment and benefit as reduction of community-level vivax transmission. Results Across a wide range of combinations of diagnostic sensitivity and specificity, Pv SeroTAT was substantially more effective than bloodstage mass screen and treat strategies and only marginally less effective than mass drug administration. The key test characteristic determining of the benefit of Pv SeroTAT strategies is diagnostic sensitivity, with higher values leading to more hypnozoite carriers effectively treated and greater reductions in vivax transmission. The key determinant of risk is diagnostic specificity: higher specificity ensures that a lower proportion of uninfected individuals are unnecessarily treated with primaquine. These relationships are maintained in both moderate and low transmission settings (qPCR prevalence 10% and 2%). Increased treatment efficacy and adherence can partially compensate for lower test performance. Multiple rounds of Pv SeroTAT with a lower performing test may lead to similar or higher reductions in vivax transmission than fewer rounds with a higher performing test, albeit with higher rate of overtreatment. Conclusions At current performance, Pv SeroTAT is predicted to be a safe and efficacious option for targeting the hypnozoite reservoir towards vivax elimination. P. vivax sero-diagnostic tests should aim for both high performance and ease of use in the field. The target product profiles informing such development should thus reflect the trade-offs between impact, overtreatment, and ease of programmatic implementation.

Purpose: In this article, the authors report reliability and validity evidence for the Dynamic Evaluation of Motor Speech Skill (DEMSS), a new test that uses dynamic assessment to aid in the differential diagnosis of childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). Method: Participants were 81 children between 36 and 79 months of age who were referred to the Mayo Clinic for diagnosis of speech sound disorders. Children were given the DEMSS and a standard speech and language test battery as part of routine evaluations. Subsequently, intrajudge, interjudge, and test-retest reliability were evaluated for a subset of participants. Construct validity was explored for all 81 participants through the use of agglomerative cluster analysis, sensitivity measures, and likelihood ratios. Results: The mean percentage of agreement for 171 judgments was 89% for test-retest reliability, 89% for intrajudge reliability, and 91% for interjudge reliability. Agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis showed that total DEMSS scores largely differentiated clusters of children with CAS vs. mild CAS vs. other speech disorders. Positive and negative likelihood ratios and measures of sensitivity and specificity suggested that the DEMSS does not overdiagnose CAS but sometimes fails to identify children with CAS. Conclusions: The value of the DEMSS in differential diagnosis of severe speech impairments was supported on the basis of evidence of reliability and validity. (Contains 5 tables and 2 figures.)

Mental health research among Arabic speakers is increasing, and with it the need to assess psychopathology of Arabic-speaking populations, including natives, refugees, and immigrants. However, major challenges include the unavailability of appropriate Arabic tools, and the difficulty of judging whether available tools are appropriate. Critical judgment of psychometric tools is important, because they are used for high stake decisions such as clinical outcomes and diagnoses. We identified Arabic-language tests that measure constructs related to mental illness and health, critically analyzed their methodologies, and provided broad recommendations for future research. We conducted a systematic search query using four online databases and followed step-wise exclusions. We identified 115 articles published between January 1998 and August 2019 which produced 138 Arabic tests to screen or diagnose or plan treatment for psychological disorders. More than 80% of tests were translated or adapted from English using methods that are not comparable with the latest standards. Methods of establishing validity, reliability, and equivalence, were also limited, with one quarter not reporting reliability, and the majority using only one source of validity evidence. There is much room for improvement when making decisions about translation or adaptation designs, as well as conducting and reporting psychometric evidence.