Development and Psychometric Evaluation of the Test of Practical Judgment Alternate Form (Form B)

Abstract

The Test of Practical Judgment (TOP-J) is increasingly used by neuropsychologists to measure everyday judgment ability in older adulthood. In the present study, we developed an alternate TOP-J Form B, which may be used to reduce practice effects for repeat assessment situations or in place of the original Form A. In developing the measure, special attention was given to limiting cultural bias and making items similar in content and difficulty to Form A. The TOP-J Form B was piloted in a clinical geriatric sample (N = 77) in the Midwestern U.S. Subsequently, older adults (N = 130) were recruited from several boroughs of New York City and surrounding areas (mean age = 77; mean years of education = 16; 69% female; 28% Black/African-American, 11% Hispanic). In this validation sample, both the 9-item and 15-item versions of the TOP-J Form B showed strong psychometric properties, including good unidimensional model fit in confirmatory factor analysis, preliminary convergent/divergent and criterion validity evidence, and strong inter-rater reliability, ICC (2, 1) = .93. The means and standard deviations for the TOP-J Form A and Form B were highly similar, particularly for the 9-item forms in which there was less than a one-point mean difference. Preliminary normative data for cognitively intact participants (n = 73) were established. We present means and standard deviations that will allow for the calculation of z scores as Form B scores were normally distributed. The newly developed TOP-J Form B should be useful in diverse clinical and research settings.