Criteria for Selecting Instruments to Assess Treatment Outcomes

A process is proposed for identifying optimal outcome assessment instruments for residential studies, and an example is provided of the application of this process. The five steps of the process are: (I) decide what to measure, (2) identify unwanted effects to measure, (3) develop an assessment plan that covers all areas of assessment, (4) tally the candidate assessment instruments by area, and (5) evaluate rival instruments within an area by applying the ideal outcome measure criteria (Newman & Ciarlo, 1994). Because the success of empirical studies depends on the proper selection of assessment instruments, it is recommended that this process be followed whenever significant changes in an assessment battery are planned.