skip to main content
205-348-7908
  Jennifer Cox, Ph.D.
  • Dr. Cox
  • What We Do
  • Who We Are
  • Where We Go
  • How to Join
  • Announcements
  • Dr. Cox
  • What We Do
  • Who We Are
  • Where We Go
  • How to Join
  • Announcements

Dr. Cox Published in Psychological Assessment!

1/1/2015

0 Comments

 
Edens, J.F., Cox, J., Smith, S.T., DeMatteo, D.S., Sorman, K. (2015). How reliable are Psychopathy Checklist-Revised scores in Canadian criminal trials? A case law review. Psychological Assessment, 27, 447-456.

The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 2003) is a professional rating scale that enjoys widespread use in forensic and correctional settings, primarily as a tool to inform risk assessments in a variety of types of cases (e.g., parole determinations, sexually violent predator [SVP] civil commitment). Although widely described as “reliable and valid” in research reports, several recent field studies have suggested that PCL-R scores provided by examiners in forensic cases are significantly less reliable than the interrater reliability values reported in research studies. Most of these field studies, however, have had small samples and only examined SVP civil commitment cases. This study builds on existing research by examining the reliability of PCL-R scores provided by forensic examiners in a much more extensive sample of Canadian criminal cases. Using the LexisNexis database, we identified 102 cases in which at least 2 scores were reported (of 257 total PCL-R scores). The single-rater intraclass correlation coefficient (ICCA1) was .59, indicating that a large percentage of the variance in individual scores was attributable to some form of error. ICC values were somewhat higher for sexual offending cases (.66) than they were for nonsexual offending cases (.46), indicating that poor interrater reliability was not restricted specifically to the assessment of sexual offenders. These and earlier findings concerning field reliability in legal cases suggest that the standard error of measurement for PCL-R scores that are provided to the courts is likely to be much larger than the value of 2.90 reported in the instrument’s manual.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    August 2022
    March 2022
    August 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    November 2020
    June 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    August 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    October 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    August 2016
    April 2016
    December 2015
    August 2015
    May 2015
    January 2015
    August 2014

    Categories

    All
    Conference/Presentation
    Personal Milestones
    Publications

Accessibility | Equal Opportunity | UA Disclaimer | Site Disclaimer | Privacy
Copyright © 2020 | The University of Alabama | Tuscaloosa, AL 35487 | (205) 348-6010
Website provided by the Center for Instructional Technology, Office of Information Technology