Measure of Criminal Social Identity - Research Paper Example

Measure of Criminal Social Identity The development of new psychological tests is a complex field, because psychological tests are used for a wide range of purposes, and it is often difficult to determine whether they are effective at testing the desired attributes. A test successfully reaching the market does not provide an adequate indication that the test is reliable. Instead, psychological researchers make use of aspects such as validity, reliability and norms to test how scientific the test is, and whether its conclusions are likely to be accurate. Without this type of information it is difficult to know whether the results of a psychological test are meaningful. One recent psychological test that has been developed is a Measure of Criminal Social Identity (MCSI), developed by Boduszek et al. (2012). The aim of this essay is to examine the development of the MCSI, the tests that were used to determine its validity and the value and usefulness of the test in research and practical application. Psychological tests are popular in research and in everyday applications. A test might be used to evaluate whether a person has a specific mental condition, or one may be used by an employer to determine whether a particular individual would be a suitable addition the their company (Miller, Lovier, & McIntire, 2011, pp. 36-39). The increased reliance on psychological testing makes it more important than ever to ensure that a test is valid and accurate, that the results it produces are actually relevant. For example, there are many psychological tests that you can take on websites which evaluate things such as the strength of a couple’s relationship, what sort of career you should go into, or whether you have a particular mental condition. However, many such tests come from unreliable sources, and have no strong measures to ensure the results which are received are relevant. As such, tests within the field of psychology have focused on the use of standards of norms, validity and reliability to determine how effective a test is likely to be, and whether results obtained using it are meaningful (Embretson, 1996). In their study, the Boduszek et al. were interested in determining the social identity of criminals, a concept that refers to the aspects of a person that they share with other people, in this case, with other criminals. The authors’ paper was focused on the validation of a new psychological test on a sample of inmates who were recidivistic (reoffenders). The importance of the study and psychological test is that the presence of a criminal social identity is thought to increase the prevalence of criminal thinking within individuals, resulting in an increased likelihood of participation in crime. The authors argue that there are currently no validated measures for determining the presence of a stable social identity. The authors made use of a 312 inmates at a Polish high security prison for the study. The psychological test that they developed was an eight-item test, where each item was scored on a 1-5 Likert scale, where one indicated strong disagreement and five indicated strong agreement. Three subscale measures were used as part of the test, these were in-group ties, cognitive centrality and in-group effect. These sub-tests were chosen because they matched the proposed model (Boduszek et al., 2012). One of the most important aspects of any psychological test is validation. This measure shows the level to which the test actually measures what it is designed to and takes into account the predictability of the participants’ responses to the questions of the test. The traditional method of validation involves comparing the outcome scores from the test with a criterion measure. This results in the creation of a validity value. Alternative approaches of validity involve focusing more on the process of the test, using experimental methods and modifying aspects of the tests, allowing a closer examination of the processes underlying the outcomes of the test (Bornstein, 2011). For the MCSI, the authors show a strong model fit to one of three alternative models examined, which suggested that the use of a three factor solution (the three subscales for the test) was the most relevant model. As such, the authors concluded that the developed model showed strong construct validity (Boduszek et al., 2012). This is a strong indication that the data is valid for the population that it is being tested on. However, because the sample was limited to a single, recidivistic population, it is difficult to extend the validity of the test to other populations. The next most crucial aspect of a psychological test is how reliable it is. The reliability of a test is related to its repeatability and the likelihood that a repetition of the test with a similar population would yield similar results. This is often determined by examining the consistency within the study population. For the MCSI sale, the authors made use of Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient, which is an accepted measure of reliability (Chang, 2008). In this study, the authors found that the Cronbach’s Alpha level was satisfactory for internal consistency, exceeding 0.8 per scale (Boduszek et al., 2012). This suggests that the study was internally consistent, and that the use of the study on a wider scale would have similar results. However, as discussed previously, the limited sample that was used for this study means that this would only be true for a similar group to the one studied. It is unlikely that the study would be reliable for a sample group from a different type of setting. It is important to note that for testing the validity and reliability of this study, the authors made use of a single test population and undertook one study. This does not produce enough information to determine norms, which are important for evaluating the meaning of different scores within the study (Miller et al., 2011, pp. 360-365).The analysis of the MCSI test that this study introduced was limited by the access to prisoners that was available to the researcher. This was strongly related to the fact that a high-security unit was chosen, but the nature of prison also suggest that some level of limitation would be inevitable. The result of that participants were chosen opportunistically, and this has the potential to influence the results of the study. For example, it is possible that prisoners with higher levels of criminal thinking wanted less to do with the researcher and did not participate in the study, potentially skewing the results. Another method that is often used to determine the credibility of a test is the items that form a part of it. In this test, there were a total of eight items, focusing on three different aspects. Item difficulty is often considered to be an important component of the test items. This usually refers to how many participants, or the percentage of participants, that respond to a question correctly. However, this is not relevant for this study, as there were no right or wrong answers. One important component of the test to establish is the norms. The authors referred to previous studies that have used similar types of measures as a method of comparing the results. However, without further tests, there is not a firmly established norm for the population being tested or this type of test. The MCSI test has the potential to play a significant role in psychological research as it allows an examination of the social identity of criminals. Because this is theorized to have a strong relation to actual criminal behavior, it could be highly relevant to determining whether people are likely to behave in a criminal manner. Despite a strong model fit, this test was only examined within a recidivistic prison sample, which involved a single prison population in one geographical area. The author examined this test in a limited population, and as such, its potential use is also restricted to this type of population. Thus, the future use of this test is limited until it can be tested on wider populations. Nevertheless, the strong results among the sample population suggests that this test may prove to be effective on a more varied population, and as such may play an important role in psychological and criminal research in the future. References Boduszek, D., Adamson, G., Shevlin, M., & Hyland, P. (2012). Development and validation of a Measure of Criminal Social Identity within a sample of Polish recidivistic prisoners. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health. doi: 10.1002 Bornstein, R. F. (2011). Toward a process-focused model of test score validity: Improving psychological assessment in science and practice. Psychological Assessment, 23(2), 532-544. Chang, A. (2008). Cronbach Alpha and Spearman-Brown Coefficient of reliability explanations. Stat Tools Retrieved June 21, 2012, from http://www.stattools.net/Alpha_Exp.php Embretson, S. E. (1996). The new rules of measurement. Psychological Assessment, 8(4), 341-349. Miller, L. A., Lovier, R. L., & McIntire, S. A. (2011). Foundations of Psychological Testing: A Practical Approach (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Read More