Cognitive Profile Analysis in School Psychology: Empirically Supported Practice or “Too Big to Fail?”

McGill, R. J.¹, Canivez, G. L.^2
1William & Mary School of Education, P. O. Box 8795, 23187, Williamsburg, VA
²Eastern Illinois University, 600 Lincoln Ave., 61920, Charleston, IL

 

Submission type

Round Table Discussion

Scheduled

Room 106, 10-07-2019, 09:00 - 10:30

Keywords

profile analysis, evidence-based assessment, IQ testing, data-based decision-making

Summary

This Roundtable Discussion is an extension of a recent article by McGill, Dombrowski, and Canivez (2018), outlining historical and continued concerns with the application of cognitive profile analysis procedures, a class of interpretive methods that are widely disseminated and promoted in school/educational psychologist training and clinical practice around the world. This discussion will review contemporary profile analysis techniques (e.g., PSW, XBA) and how they vary from previous permutations of these methods, review the evolution of the evidence-base for these methods with a particular emphasis on new and emerging evidence in the professional literature. This Roundtable Discussion addresses varied psychometric methods that provide evidence for score reliability, validity, and diagnostic utility pertaining to intelligence tests in general and various profile analysis procedures specifically. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, incremental validity (observed and latent scores), and diagnostic utility methods (discriminant function/logistic regression, Receiver Operator Characteristic curves, etc.) are presented to convey the degree to which interpretation of scores and score comparisons are valid indicators of ability. Additionally, the factors that may support continued interest in these procedures will be discussed. Audience questions and discussion will form a critical component for this likely spirited presentation.    

Auteurs