SOURCE:

Faculty: Social Sciences
Department: Psychology

CONTRIBUTORS:

Agu M. Resurrecta
Nwafor E. Chidozie
Ezeokana Jude

ABSTRACT:

The comprehensive system of Rorschach inkblot test is one of the most extensively researched projective test for psychological assessment yet within Nigeria it is sparsely utilized during psychological assessment. One of the reasons for this may be that the test validity has not been established in Nigeria. Thus this study investigated the validity of the comprehensive system of Rorschach inkblot test for assessing three common psychological symptoms (Depression, paranoid and psychosis) among clinical and non-clinical populations in South-eastern Nigeria. A total of one hundred (50 clinical and 50 non-clinical adults) participated in the study. Their age ranged from 20 to 40 years (M = 30.01, SD = 2.42). The non-clinical samples were from Madonna University Okija and Caritas University Amoji-Nike Enugu, the clinical samples from Neuropsychiatry hospital Nawfia and Enugu State University Teaching Hospital. Two instruments were used for the data collection: Rorschach inkblot test (Exner, 2003) and Symptom Checklist 90 (Derogatis, Lipman & Covi, 1977). The study adopted correlational, and between subject designs. Pearson r product-moment correlation coefficient, paired sample t-test and MANOVA were employed as the statistical tool for data analyses. The result showed that there were significant differences between the scores of clinical and non-clinical samples for Depression t (1, 49) = 6.04, p < .001; Paranoid t (1, 49) = 3.78, p < .001; Psychosis t (1, 49) = 4.60, p < .001(discriminant validity). Similarly it revealed that there were significant positive coefficients between the scores of similar subscales of Rorschach and SCL 90 for clinical and non clinical participants (concurrent validity). It also showed that negative coefficients emerged when non similar subscales of Rorschach scores were correlated (divergent validity). Furthermore, the clinical samples scored significantly higher in the Rorschach subscales similar to their diagnoses (predictive validity). In the same vein, there was a significant test-retest reliability for the non-clinical sample after one month interval r = .72, p < .001(test-retest reliability). Generally, Rorschach test showed good psychometric properties for the assessment of the three common psychological symptoms investigated; therefore it was recommended that psychologists involved in clinical assessment should include it in their assessment batteries. The study suggested that further researches are needed to cover other dimensions of Rorschach test beyond the scope of this study.