SPM-2 project updates
John Williams
Hi all,
Just wanted to bring us all up to date on the following aspects of the project that are currently in progress:
- Manual chapters: I’ve read through all of your edits to chapter 3, and most of them look fine, so I am working on integrating them, as well as revising some of the technical sections along the lines you’ve suggested to make them more user-friendly. One issue you raised, regarding who can rate and be rated at what ages on which form, I realize is more of an administration question, so I am going to move the bulk of that section over to chapter 2 (Administration & Scoring), which will be the next manual chapter I send you. Probably in the next month or two.
- Item selection: We are getting to the point now on some of the forms where we have enough data to start the process of selecting the final items for the commercial forms. As you know from the last round of item selection, this will involve a variety of data analyses, recommendations from me, and discussion among you, to make a final decision on the exact composition of each form. We’ll start with the forms that currently have the best analytic profile (over the minimum N threshold for item and factor analyses, and also representative enough of our demographic groups that we can confidently conduct differential item functioning). Let’s get into that after AOTA and plan at least 6 months to finish the process.
- Spanish forms: One thing we are currently in danger of getting behind on is our Spanish forms. Recall that our goal is not just to publish translations, but to collect data for equivalency studies. To do this, the author group must review the back translations so that our translator can revise the Spanish forms accordingly, so that we can finalize them, put them through Art, and get them in the field. I know you all had designated Diane as the point person to handle any back-and-forth with the translator (which is essential for clear communication) but the back-translation review work itself is probably much more than one person can handle in the timeframe that remains. Therefore, I would say that this should be the author group’s top priority until it is complete. How you divide the work is up to you, of course, but we need to send all of the forms to the translator in one batch.
Regarding your AOTA presentation, of course I’m happy to help any way I can. Per Diana’s recent email, at the very least I can provide you with a table of all the alpha coefficients that were current when we selected the items. Of course, it would only be the new forms because they are the only ones we piloted, and it would not actually be standardization data, only pilot data. So it would be a bit of a fudge in terms of your official objectives. But, if you wanted to also show the alpha coefficients for SPM and SPM-P from the manual as a comparison that would at least give you an approximation of the data you’re looking for.
John
John C. Williams, PhD
Senior Project Director
Licensed Clinical Psychologist
t 800.648.8857 or 424.201.8800
625 Alaska Avenue, Torrance, CA 90503
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