Course Details

Course Title	SPCP 2016 - Sensitivity, Specificity, and Base Rates: Getting Realistic About Psychological Tests and Measures in Police Psychology
Date	9/27/2016
Provider	Society for Police and Criminal Psychology (SPCP)
Phone
Email
Website	http://www.policepsychology.org/page-18100
Location	Austin, TX
Credit Hours	1.25
Instructor(s)	Wm. Drew Gouvier & Benjamin D. Hill
Method of Instruction	Lecture
Approving Agency	APA
Course Syllabus

Course Description

This presentation reviews the evolution of reporting indices and psychometric operating characteristic ranging from global accuracies, subdivided hit and miss rates to determine sensitivities and specificities, and onto positive and negative predictive powers and the specific odds ratios that result. Serious threats to the internal and external validity of our testing remain however, and many go unseen to those who do not know where to look. Base rates and low frequency behaviors present a serious challenge to be overcome, and strategy for balancing scientifically valid psychometric selection with the reality of limited pools of applicants is presented.

Course Objectives

The learner will be able to incorporate their new knowledge about base rate influences into their every day test interpretation and decision making. The learner will be able to identify and explain the nature and impact of many oft-neglected threats to the internal and external validity of their psychological testing activities.The learner will be able to identify and explain the nature and impact of many oft-neglected threats to the internal and external validity of their psychological testing activities.