Ecological validity in neurocognitive assessment: Systematized review, content analysis, and proposal of an instrument

• Autor(a) principal: Pinto, Joana O.
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: Dores, Artemisa Rocha, Peixoto, Bruno, Barbosa, Fernando
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.22/22229
• topic: Checklist; Content analysis; Ecological validity; Neurocognitive assessment; Systematized review

The main objectives of this study are to identify the dimensions of Ecological Validity(EV) within the definitions of this concept, understand how they are operationalized in neurocog-nitive tests, and propose a checklist for EV attributes in neurocognitive tests. A systematized review was combined with content analysis of the selected papers, usingthe inductive method. We analyzed 82 studies on the EV of neurocognitive tests, 19 literaturereviews and 63 empirical studies. Based on this review, we identified the relevant criteria for evalu-ating EV. EV is a multidimensional concept with two main dimensions: representativeness and gen-eralization. Representativeness involves the subdimensions simplicity-complexity and artificial-nat-ural and several criteria organized on a continuum from low EV to high EV. Generalization isdependent on representativeness and is influenced by different cognitive and non-cognitive fac-tors. We propose six stages for operationalizing EV, from defining the objectives of the neurocog-nitive assessment to the methodology for scoring and interpreting the results.This systematized review helps to operationalize the concept of EV by providing atool for evaluating and improving EV while developing new tests. Further studies with a longitu-dinal design can compare the predictive value of tests with higher versus lower EV-checklistscores.