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theses

The field of forensic psychology is ever-growing, though there is still a lack of research that examines the content and quality of forensic assessments. Literature is even more limited when examining the subfield of child welfare. Forensic evaluations in child welfare are important as they inform treatment recommendations for members of vulnerable populations. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the content (i.e., background information and psychological tests) and quality of forensic evaluations in child welfare, with the goal of contributing to literature to better inform practice in this field. This study used a sample of over 1600 evaluations reviewed using the Quality Improvement Tool (QI Tool). These data were originally collected by the New Jersey Coordination Center for Child Neglect Forensic Evaluation and Treatment (NJCC). The QI Tool was designed to adhere to the principles outlined in the New Jersey Department of Children and Families (DCF) Guidelines for Expert Evaluations in Child Abuse/Neglect Proceedings (2012). The results of this study found that there is a statistically significant positive correlation between the variables of interest (Total Background Information and Total Tests) and the overall quality of the evaluation. This positive correlation remained when the sample was stratified by the age of the subject. Regression analyses were conducted to determine if the overall quality of the evaluation could be predicted by the number of unique background sources used in an evaluation and the number of psychological tests used in an evaluation. The results found that using a higher number of unique sources of background information and a higher number of psychological tests predicted higher levels of quality. Additionally, evaluations conducted with a child as the subject tended to use more unique sources of background information and psychological tests. Rank tests were also conducted to determine if there were group differences in the number of unique background sources and number of psychological tests used based on whether the evaluator used a multimodal approach or demonstrated expertise in testing, respectively. The results found that there are statistically significant differences in the groups based on the aforementioned measures of quality. Limitations of this study and suggestions for future research are also discussed.

ETD_10922

Psy.D.

Includes bibliographical references

doi:10.7282/t3-zp0z-hw37

ETD doctoral

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