Pedagosko i psiholosko testiranje i procjenjivanje spadaju među najvažnije doprinose znanosti o ponasanju nasem drustvu i pružaju temeljna i znacajna poboljsanja u odnosu na ranije postupke. Iako se ne može ustvrditi da su svi testovi dovoljno usavrseni niti da su sva testiranja razborita i korisna, postoji velika kolicina informacija koje ukazuju na ucinkovitost kvalitetnih instrumenata u onim situacijama u kojima je njihovo koristenje potkrijepljeno validacijskim podacima. Pravilna upotreba testova može dovesti do boljih odluka o pojedincima i programima nego sto bi to bio slucaj bez njihovog koristenja, a također i ukazati na put za siri i pravedniji pristup obrazovanju i zaposljavanju. Međutim, losa upotreba testova može dovesti do zamjetne stete nanesene ispitanicima i drugim sudionicima u procesu donosenja odluka na temelju testovnih podataka. Cilj Standarda je promoviranje kvalitetne i eticne upotrebe testova te uspostavljanje osnovice za ocjenu kvalitete postupaka testiranja. Svrha objavljivanja Standarda je uspostavljanje kriterija za evaluaciju testova, provedbe testiranja i posljedica upotrebe testova. Iako bi evaluacija prikladnosti testa ili njegove primjene trebala ovisiti prvenstveno o strucnim misljenjima, Standardi pružaju okvir koji osigurava obuhvacanje svih relevantnih pitanja. Bilo bi poželjno da svi autori, sponzori, nakladnici i korisnici profesionalnih testova usvoje Standarde te da poticu druge da ih također prihvate.

Standards for educational and psychological testing

Hardly a family in America has been untouched by mental illness. As many as one third of American adults will suffer a diagnosable mental disorder sometime in their life, and 20 percent have a mental disorder at any given time. Although research on the causes and treatment of mental disorders remains vitally important—and indeed major advances are leading to better lives for increasing numbers of people—much greater effort than ever before needs to be directed to prevention. The Senate Appropriations Committee of the U.S. Congress believed that a strategic approach to the prevention of mental disorders was warranted. The Congress mandated the National Institute of Mental Health to enter into an agreement with the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to prepare an integrated report of current research with policy-oriented and detailed long-term recommendations for a prevention research agenda. The specific tasks of the IOM committee, as negotiated with NIMH and the co-funding agencies, were as follows: • Review the status of current research on the prevention of mental illness and problem behaviors and on the promotion of mental health throughout the life span. This should include an understanding of available research knowledge, research priorities, and research opportunities in the prevention research area. • Review the existing federal presence in the prevention of mental disorders and the promotion of mental health, spanning the continuum from research to policy and services. • Provide recommendations on federal policies and programs of ABSTRACT xi Ab ou t th is P D F fil e: T hi s ne w d ig ita l r ep re se nt at io n of t he o rig in al w or k ha s be en r ec om po se d fro m X M L fil es c re at ed f ro m t he o rig in al p ap er b oo k, n ot f ro m t he or ig in al ty pe se tti ng fi le s. P ag e br ea ks a re tr ue to th e or ig in al ; l in e le ng th s, w or d br ea ks , h ea di ng s ty le s, a nd o th er t y pe se tti ng -s pe ci fic fo rm at tin g, h ow ev er , c an no t b e re ta in ed , a nd s om e ty po gr ap hi c er ro rs m ay h av e be en a cc id en t a lly in se rte d. P le as e us e th e pr in t v er si on o f t hi s pu bl ic at io n as th e au th or ita tiv e ve rs io n fo r a ttr ib ut io n.

Reducing Risks for Mental Disorders: Frontiers for Preventive Intervention Research

Background
This study aims to review the literature regarding the barriers to sampling, recruitment, participation, and retention of members of socioeconomically disadvantaged groups in health research and strategies for increasing the amount of health research conducted with socially disadvantaged groups.

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Reaching the hard-to-reach: a systematic review of strategies for improving health and medical research with socially disadvantaged groups

Context Psychopaths belong to a larger group of persons with antisocial personality disorder and are characterized by an inability to have emotional involvement and by the repeated violation of the rights of others. It was hypothesized that this behavior might be the consequence of deficient fear conditioning. Objective To study the cerebral, peripheral, and subjective correlates of fear conditioning in criminal psychopaths and healthy control subjects. Design An aversive differential pavlovian delay conditioning paradigm with slides of neutral faces serving as conditioned and painful pressure as unconditioned stimuli. Setting The Department of Medical Psychology at the University of Tubingen, Tubingen, Germany. Participants Ten male psychopaths as defined by the Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised and 10 age- and education-matched healthy male controls. The psychopaths were criminal offenders on bail and waiting for their trial or were on parole. The healthy controls were recruited from the community. Main Outcome Measures Brain activation based on functional magnetic resonance imaging, electrodermal responses, emotional valence, arousal, and contingency ratings. Results The healthy controls showed enhanced differential activation in the limbic-prefrontal circuit (amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, insula, and anterior cingulate) during the acquisition of fear and successful verbal and autonomic conditioning. The psychopaths displayed no significant activity in this circuit and failed to show conditioned skin conductance and emotional valence ratings, although contingency and arousal ratings were normal. Conclusion This dissociation of emotional and cognitive processing may be the neural basis of the lack of anticipation of aversive events in criminal psychopaths.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/articlepdf/208744/yoa40213.pdf

Deficient Fear Conditioning in Psychopathy A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

The upshot of these needs for change is both dismaying and exciting, both disturbing in the destruction of long-familiar patterns of dealing with human suffering, and paradoxically hopeful in raising the possibility that significant failures in our health care systems of the past — limited access to medical care and grossly inadequate public sector “non-systems”, for example — may now be addressed more successfully.

Administration and policy in mental health

In this editorial, the authors note that steady submission rate and a rejection rate that hovers at 80%, indicates the journal is flourishing and provides them with the fortunate opportunity to make an excellent journal even better. To that end, they describe three initiatives they are working on and explain the changes readers can expect as they begin to implement them in the journal. Specifically, these initiatives include: (1) promoting transparency, openness, and reproducibility in published research; (2) improving author-reviewer fit; and (3) expanding the diversity of journal content and decision makers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Taking the next steps: Promoting open science and expanding diversity in law and human behavior

Capital jury sentencing recommendations: The relationship between mental illness-related mitigating factors and sentencing decisions

/pdf/risk-need-assessment-bridging-disciplinary-and-regional-ivcp8txyzy.pdf

Risk–need assessment: Bridging disciplinary and regional boundaries

Substance Use, Abuse, and Dependence

The application of risk-need-responsivity to risk assessment and intervention-planning: Opportunities, current limitations, and relevant research needs

David DeMatteo

Papers

Taking the next steps: Promoting open science and expanding diversity in law and human behavior

Capital jury sentencing recommendations: The relationship between mental illness-related mitigating factors and sentencing decisions

Risk–need assessment: Bridging disciplinary and regional boundaries

Substance Use, Abuse, and Dependence

The application of risk-need-responsivity to risk assessment and intervention-planning: Opportunities, current limitations, and relevant research needs