The screening and brief intervention modality of treatment for at-risk college drinking is becoming increasingly popular. A key to effective implementation is use of validated screening tools. Although the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) has been validated in adult samples and is often used with college students, research has not…

The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) assesses executive and frontal lobe function and can be administered manually or by computer. Despite the widespread application of the 2 versions, the psychometric equivalence of their scores has rarely been evaluated and only a limited set of criteria has been considered. The present experimental study (N =…

The construction of the American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic manual has been guided primarily by concerns of construct validity rather than of clinical utility, despite claims by its authors that the highest priority has in fact been clinical utility. The purpose of this article was to further articulate the concept and importance of…

Computerized adaptive testing in personality assessment can improve efficiency by significantly reducing the number of items administered to answer an assessment question. Two approaches have been explored for adaptive testing in computerized personality assessment: item response theory and the countdown method. In this article, the authors…

To evaluate the value of computer-administered interviews and rating scales, the following topics are reviewed in the present article: (a) strengths and weaknesses of structured and unstructured assessment instruments, (b) advantages and disadvantages of computer administration, and (c) the validity and utility of computer-administered interviews…

This is a validation study of a computerized adaptive (CAT) version of the Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality (SNAP) conducted with 413 undergraduates who completed the SNAP twice, 1 week apart. Participants were assigned randomly to 1 of 4 retest groups: (a) paper-and-pencil (P&P) SNAP, (b) CAT, (c) P&P/CAT, and (d) CAT/P&P. With…

The authors propose using cluster analysis to develop a branching logic that would allow the adaptive administration of psychological instruments. The proposed methodology is described in detail and used to develop an adaptive version of the Halstead Category Test from archival data. (SLD)

To elucidate differences between normal age-associated memory impairment (AAMI) and mild Alzheimer's disease (AD), batteries of traditional memory tasks and computer-simulated everyday memory tests were administered to 56 matched AAMI-AD pairs. Results demonstrate the feasibility of discriminating mild AD through these tests. (SLD)

A new procedure, the Letter Memory Test, was developed for evaluating adequacy of effort given during neuropsychological testing. It is a computer-administered forced-choice recognition task. In three studies involving nearly 400 patients and community volunteers, the test discriminated among poorly and highly motivated groups, and its internal…

Following the publication of the third edition Wechsler scales (i.e., WAIS-III and WMS-III), demographically corrected norms were made available in the form of a computerized scoring program (i.e., WAIS-III/WMS-III/WIAT-II Scoring Assistant). These norms correct for age, gender, ethnicity, and education. Since then, four new indexes have been…

A developed computer-administered form of the Hamilton Anxiety Scale and the clinician form of the instrument were administered to 214 psychiatric outpatients and 78 community adults. Results support the reliability and validity of the computer-administered version as an alternative to the clinician-administered version. (SLD)

In a counterbalanced, within subjects, repeated measures design, 130 undergraduates were administered the Computer-Assisted Hypnosis Scale (CAHS) and the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale and were hypnotized. The CAHS was shown to be a psychometrically sound instrument for measuring hypnotic ability. (SLD)

A computer-administered version of the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale was administered to 31 patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder, 16 with other anxiety disorders, and 23 nonpatient controls. The computer version correlated highly with the clinician-administered version and was well understood and liked by subjects. (SLD)