Editing Thematic Apperception Test (section)

==Psychometric characteristics==
Thematic apperception tests are meant to evoke an involuntary display of one's [[subconscious]]. There is no standardization for evaluating one's TAT responses; each evaluation is completely subjective because each response is unique. [[Validity (logic)|Validity]] and [[:wikt:reliability|reliability]] are, consequently, the largest question marks of the TAT.<ref name="problems">Cramer, P. (1999). Future directions for the Thematic Apperception Test. Journal of Personality Assessment, 72, 74-92.</ref> There are trends and patterns, which help identify psychological traits, but there are no distinct responses to indicate different conditions a patient may or may not have. Medical professionals most commonly use it in the early stages of patient treatment. The TAT helps professionals identify a broad range of issues that their patients may suffer from. Even when individual scoring procedures are examined, the absence of standardization or norms make it difficult to compare the results of validity and reliability research across studies. Specifically, even studies using the same scoring system often use different cards, or a different number of cards.<ref name="lilienfeld">Lilienfeld, S. O., Wood, J. M., & Garb, H. N. (2000). The scientific status of projective techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 1(2), 27-66.</ref> Standardization is also absent amongst clinicians, who often alter the instructions and procedures.<ref name="practical"/> Murstein<ref name ="murstein">Murstein, B. I. (1963). Theory and Research in Projective Techniques (Emphasizing the TAT). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons</ref> explained that different cards may be more or less useful for specific clinical questions and purposes, making the use of one set of cards for all clients impractical.

===Reliability===
[[Internal consistency]], a reliability estimate focusing on how highly test items correlate to each other, is often quite low for TAT scoring systems. Some authors have argued that internal consistency measures do not apply to the TAT. In contrast to traditional test items, which should all measure the same construct and be correlated to each other, each TAT card represents a different situation and should yield highly different response themes.<ref name="problems"/> Lilienfeld and colleagues <ref name="lilienfeld" /> countered this point by questioning the practice of compiling TAT responses to form scores. Both [[inter-rater reliability]] (the degree to which different raters score TAT responses the same) and [[test–retest reliability]] (the degree to which individuals receive the same scores over time) are highly variable across scoring techniques.<ref name="murstein" /> However, Murray asserted that TAT answers are highly related to internal states such that high test-retest reliability should not be expected.<ref name="lilienfeld" /> Gruber and Kreuzpointner (2013) developed a new method for calculating internal consistency using categories instead of pictures. As they demonstrated in a mathematical proof, their method provides a better fit for the underlying construction principles of TAT, and also achieved adequate [[Cronbach's alpha]] scores up to .84 <ref>Gruber, N. & Kreuzpointner, L. (2013). Measuring the reliability of picture story exercises like the TAT. PLoS One, 8(11), e79450. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0079450</ref>

===Validity===
The validity of the TAT, or the degree to which it measures what it is supposed to measure,<ref name="validity definition">{{Cite web|url=http://allpsych.com/stats/unit2/32-2/#.VTQOSWRVikp|title=32: Validity: Measuring What We Intend to Measure – AllPsych|access-date=2015-04-19|archive-date=2015-04-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150427111537/http://allpsych.com/stats/unit2/32-2/#.VTQOSWRVikp|url-status=live}}</ref> is low.<ref name="lilienfeld" /> Jenkins <ref name="jenkins">Jenkins, S. R. (2008). Introduction: Why "score" TATs, anyway?. In S. R. Jenkins & (Eds.), A handbook of clinical scoring systems for the Thematic Apperception Test. New York, NY: Taylor and Francis Group.</ref> has stated that "the phrase 'validity of the TAT' is meaningless, because validity is specific not to the pictures, but to the set of scores derived from the population, purpose, and circumstances involved in any given data collection." That is, the validity of the test would be ascertained by seeing how clinician's decisions were assisted based on the TAT. Evidence on this front suggests it is a weak guide at best. For example, one study indicated that clinicians classified individuals as clinical or non-clinical at close to chance levels (57% where 50% would be guessing) based on TAT data alone. The same study found that classifications were 88% correct based on [[Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory|MMPI]] data. Using TAT in addition to the MMPI reduced accuracy to 80%.<ref name = Wildman1975>Wildman, R.W., & Wildman, R.W. II. (1975). An investigation into the comparative validity of several diagnostic tests and test batteries. ''Journal of Clinical Psychology'', '''31''', 455-458</ref>

===Alternate considerations===

Despite the conflicting information about the psychometric characteristics of the TAT, proponents have argued that the TAT should not be judged using traditional standards of reliability and validity. According to Holt,<ref>Holt, R. R. (1999). Empiricism and the Thematic Apperception Test: Validity is the payoff. In L. Gieser & M. I. Stein (Eds.), Evocative Images: The Thematic Apperception Test, Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.</ref> "the TAT is a complex method of assessing people, which does not lend itself to the standard rules of thumb about test standards [. . .]" (p.&nbsp;101). For example, it has been argued that the purpose of the TAT is to reveal a wide range of personality characteristics and complex, nuanced patterns, as opposed to traditional psychological tests that are designed to measure unitary and narrow constructs.<ref name="jenkins" /> Hibbard and colleagues<ref>Hibbard, S., Mitchell, D., & Porcerelli, J. (2001). Internal consistency of the object relations and social cognition scales for the thematic apperception test. Journal of Personality Assessment, 77(3), 408-419.</ref> examined several considerations about traditional views of reliability and validity as they apply to the TAT. First, they noted that traditional views of reliability may limit the validity of a measure (such as occurs with multi-faceted concepts in which characteristics are not necessarily related to each other, but are meaningful in combination). Further, Cronbach's alpha, a commonly used measure of internal consistency, is dependent on the number of items in scale. For the TAT, most scales use only a small number of cards (with each card treated like an item) so alphas would not be expected to be very high. Many clinicians also discount the importance of psychometrics, believing that generalizability of the findings to a given client's situation is more important than generalizing findings to the population.<ref name="jenkins" />