Professional Documents
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e-book 1 Cross cultural research using the TEMAS test with Hispanic children
Elsa B. Cardalda Ponce School of Medicine and Health Sciences Interamerican University of Puerto Rico Puerto Rico
Giuseppe Costantino Touro College and University System Lutheran Medical Center/Lutheran Family Health Centers USA
Edited by Reuben M. Castagno, Touro College and University System, Film and Education Research Academy, Teachers College, Columbia & Melanie Rodriguez Berros, Ponce School of Medicine and Health Sciences
Cross cultural research using the TEMAS test with Hispanic children by Elsa B. Cardalda & Giuseppe Costantino is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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Acknowledgments Book Manuscript Editors: Dr. Ruben Castagno, Associate Professor, Department of School Psychology, Touro College and University System, New York, N.Y. Film and Education Research Academy, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, N.Y., provided editorial assistance on the first draft of this e-book. And Melanie Rodriguez Berros, Ph.D. doctoral student, Ponce School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ponce, PR, provided complete editorial assistance on the present version of the e-book. Lauren Sigal. M.S., former Graduate School Psychology student, Touro College and University System, completed the Authors Index of the first draft of the e-book. We sincerely appreciate the generosity of artists David Gasser and Gustavo Souto, who allowed us use of the image for the cover of the book.
Contact info of primary authors: Dr. Elsa B. Cardalda- ecardalda@gmail.com Dr. Giuseppe Costantino
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drc1225@aol.com;
webpage:
temastest.com
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Table of contents Bio notes of principal authors Articles: 1. TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) Multicultural Assessment in the new Millennium. Giuseppe Costantino, Elsa B. Cardalda, Richard H. Dana, Erminia Costantino, Francesca Fantini, Filippo Ashieri, Patrizia Bevilacqua 2. Culturally sensitive/competent assessment of Puerto Rican adolescents in New York and its relationship to school achievement. Elsa B. Cardalda, Giuseppe Costantino, Lili M. Sardias, Mariela Len-Velzquez. 3. Critical period for the Achievement Motivation personality function among Hispanic Students. Elsa B. Cardalda, Giuseppe Costantino, Jos Martnez, Mariela LenVelzquez. 4. Factorial components of the multicultural projective/narrative TEMAS test for Hispanic children. Elsa B. Cardalda, Mariela Len-Velzquez, Sean Sayers-Montalvo, Nyrma Ortiz-Vargas. 5. Cross cultural comparisons of the TEMAS group and individual testing formats. Elsa B. Cardalda, Giuseppe Costantino, Victoria Jimnez-Surez, Mariela Len-Velzquez. 6. Correlations of the TEMAS Projective/Narrative test with the BASC Self Report of Personality. Elsa B. Cardalda, Giuseppe Costantino, Jos V. Martnez, Mariela LenVelzquez.
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7. Chocolate, tan, peach: Racial Descriptions in TEMAS Narratives by Puerto Rican Children. Elsa B. Cardalda, Azilde Snchez.
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Dedicated to the beautiful females of our families: Angelica Beatriz Tirado-Cardalda (daughter), Mariana Isabel Sarmiento-Cardalda (niece) of the first author, Erminia Borges Costantino (daughter), and Maryse Borges Costantino (spouse) of the second author). May you find it in your hearts to honor your legacy and your ancestors. This book is also dedicated in loving and lasting memory of Robert BobMalgady, our intellectual hero, the most accomplished psychologist and statistician in multicultural research.
Green, how I want you green. Green wind. Green branches. The ship out on the sea And the horse on the mountain. With the shade around her waist She dreams on her balcony, Green flesh, her hair green, With eyes of cold silver. Romance Sonmbulo. Federico Garca Lorca
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Giuseppe Costantino, Ph.D. is Professor, Graduate School of Psychology, Touro College and University System, and Director of Research, Lutheran Medical Center/Lutheran Family Health Centers, NYC, USA. He is the author of TEMAS Multicultural Test, Cuento Therapy, and TEMAS Narrative Therapy. His culturally informed research is recognized by the US Surgeon General (2001) and by the American Psychological Association APA (2003, 2008) and he is known internationally for his contributions to multicultural psychology. He is the recipient of several large NIH grants, and is a member of the American Psychological Association. Dr. Costantino has received several awards and recently the 2011 Italian American Psychological Academy (IAPA) award for excellent contribution to multicultural psychology. Dr. Costantino is author of over 50 book chapters, journal articles and books. He is the author of the internationally acclaimed multicultural instrument Tell-Me-A-Story, which has been adapted in several countries for use with different ethnic/ culturally diverse groups of children and adolescents. Elsa B. Cardalda, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of the Ponce School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Puerto Rico, and contributing lecturer at the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico. She is President of her own company of psychological services for at risk/maltreated Hispanic children (Sunflower psychological services). During her career she has adapted several instruments for Hispanic children, and developed theoretical and clinical models for intervening with at risk maltreated children. Her work with the TEMAS test spans about twenty years of continued cross-cultural research published in numerous articles and book chapters. She is author of several volumes: two edited journals on pediatrics and womens issues, a book on contemporary muralism as a look into cultural identity and also has published two books on
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poetry. She was the recipient of federal grants to promote academic infrastructure for emerging Latino psychology research groups, and has contributed extensively to the accreditation of psychology academic programs and to committees in psychological professional associations.
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TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) Multicultural Assessment in the new Millennium
Giuseppe Costantino Touro College Lutheran Medical Center/Lutheran Family Health Centers Elsa B. Cardalda Ponce School of Medicine and Health Sciences Interamerican University of Puerto Rico Richard H. Dana Regional Research Institute, Portland State University Erminia Costantino American Multicultural Institute Francesca Fantini Filippo Aschieri Patrizia Bevilacqua Catholic University of Milan
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Abstract This chapter is comprised of four parts. Part 1 reports on test and assessment bias and the development of TEMAS as a culturally competent, narrative instrument. Part 2 details the standardization program of the TEMAS instrument in the USA. Part 3 reports on studies among Latino school children in New York City and Puerto Rico. Part 4 informs about validity and cross-cultural standardization studies of the TEMAS with Italian, Arab and Latino immigrant children living in Milan, Italy. Key words: TEMAS test, multicultural assessment, projective/narrative tests Resumen Este captulo est compuesto por cuatro partes. Parte 1 reporta sobre las pruebas, los sesgos en la evaluacin, y el desarrollo del TEMAS como un instrumento narrativo culturalmente competente. Parte 2 detalla el programa de estandarizacin del instrumento TEMAS en Puerto Rico y en Estados Unidos. Parte 3 reporta sobre las investigaciones con estudiantes latinos en la ciudad de Nueva York y Puerto Rico. Parte 4 informa sobre los estudios de validez y de estandarizacin transcultural del TEMAS con nios italianos e inmigrantes latinos and rabes viviendo en Miln, Italia.
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PART 1. The history of assessment bias and bias reduction affecting all multicultural populations: An introduction to TEMAS Introduction As an introduction to the TEMAS test this chapter examines the history of assessment bias and bias reduction affecting all areas of multicultural populations. At the present, these populations include 31% of North America and 23% in United Europe, composed of immigrants, refugees, migrants, under classes, and bicultural-bilingual international elite. Migrant communities, for example, in 2005 composed more than 3% of the world population or 185-192 million (International Organization of Migration-IOM- 2005), with 12% in developed countries and 25% in fast-growing global cities (Castles, 2007). Increasingly these individuals fail to receive adequate health/mental health services and social care because cultural issues are minimized and policies affecting use of resources for these groups are adversely affected by growing negative attitudes and international racism. The relative under-incorporation of cultural issues in assessment instruments and practice is an immediate concern for which remedial procedures are readily available. The underlying reasons for deficits in existing tests/methods and new instruments are visible in underutilization of comprehensive assessment and persistence of monoculture Western science as reflected in national policies prioritizing services for homogeneous resident populations. Nonetheless, as critical ratios of multicultural populations increase, national systems of care must ultimately incorporate new tests applicable to the entire population and develop relevant, beneficial, costeffective, and research-based treatments for identified problems. These issues provide a rationale
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for redirecting assessment attention toward responsible mental health and social care services for children and adolescents in multicultural societies. Assessment Bias Assessment bias is found among clinicians, in behavioral health service delivery and is exposed as instrument bias in tests/methods (Dana, 1993, 2000, 2005, 2007a). Clinician bias occurs in ethnocentric thinking and by stereotyping clients. Ethnic/racial glosses based on invidious group comparisons as a result of inept comparative research provide bias (Trimble, Helms, & Root, 2003). Ignorance of credible social etiquette during professional service delivery can reduce task-orientation; affect the entire response process, including scoring and subsequent interpretation (Sue & Zane, 1987). Diagnostic systems, such as the DSM-IV and DSM-IV-TR, overemphasize psychopathology and thereby limit personality assessment for problems-in-living, particularly issues germane to oppression resulting from cultural origins, age, disability, poverty, social class, gender, and sexual orientation. These socio-cultural diversities provide multiple individual identities requiring detailed understanding as a basis for societal services (Atkinson & Hackett, 2004). Test/method bias can impair measurement adequacy and instrument effectiveness (Dana, 1993; Van de Vijver, 2000). Test/Method Bias and Bias Reduction Bias in standard objective tests and projective methods potentially intrudes during conceptualization, construction, scoring variables, reliability, norms, interpretation, and validation for cross-cultural equivalence (Allen & Dana, 2004). Linguistic/translation, construct, and metric/scalar dimensions of cross-cultural equivalence must be examined for bias (Allen & Walsh, 2000). Corrections for bias include acculturation status measurement (Allen, Vaage, & Hauff, 2006; Van de Vijver & Phalet, 2004), recognition of cultural issues throughout the service 12
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delivery process (Costantino, Dana, & Malgady, 2007), and multicultural education for service providers (Dana & Allen, 2008). Bias cannot be addressed completely by corrections for existing instruments but is a byproduct of good ethnic science as well as new instruments designed to minimize bias (Costantino, et al. 2007; Dana, 2007a; Okazaki & Sue, 2000). New Instruments New instruments require criteria for development that incorporate our current understanding of the nature of cross-cultural/multicultural assessment. The TEMAS test is a unique example of new instruments (Costantino et al., 2007; Dana, 2006), that can more adequately correct for bias by providing what was omitted in constructing, norming, and validating standard measures of personality and psychopathology. Cross-cultural understanding of individual adolescents and children has been limited historically by test instruments constructed for majority populations in Western countries. As a result, the effectiveness of these standard instruments has been affected by assessment bias. In order to achieve responsible measurement objectives, new instruments must be developed consistent with good ethnic and multicultural science. Culturally Competent New Instruments Criteria for developing culturally competent instruments are now available (Costantino et al., 2007; Dana, 1993, 2007b). These criteria include (a) oversight by cultural communities in all phases of construction and application; (b) culturally recognizable stimuli; (c) scoring variables designed for cultural equivalence; (d) credible administration etiquette; (e) representative normative data; (f) interpretation informed by culture-specific research knowledge.
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On the basis of good ethnic and multicultural science, new assessment instruments in North America must be developed in concert with ethnic communities and validated-cross culturally in other countries for international use. Local and international aegis is imperative to avoid imposition of Western assumptions, values, and personality-psychopathology expectations on the format, nature, and contents of items or other stimuli present in new instruments. Involving cultural communities rests upon sufficient cultural understanding and rapport by test developers to initiate, sustain, and amicably incorporate input over long periods of time. Narrative test stimuli must be familiar, recognizable, and culturally relevant for assessments. During the early development of picture-story tests by anthropologists for use with non-Western peoples, design criteria were exhaustively considered (e.g., Sherwood, 1957) and subsequently evaluated in a continuing empirical process (e.g., Jenkins, 2008). Test stimuli for literate and non-literate groups reflect not only different presentation formats but also theoretical conceptions that guide the appropriateness of specific assessment paradigms for cross-cultural populations (e.g., Wiggins, 2003). The cultural equivalence of scoring variables has been infrequently examined due to difficulty implementing construct validation research. This research lacuna resulted in using translations as spurious construct validation evidence and reduced the likelihood of developing bona fide normative data for standard instrument applications in new cultural contexts. Despite these concerns, the development of culturally meaningful objective scoring variables remains a primary task for developers of tests/methods suitable for multicultural populations. The phrase representative normative data has not been adequately understood with respect to standard assessment instruments. Normative data ordinarily reflects the national
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cultural composition of the entire population and this provides only very small nonrepresentative samples of particular cultural minorities and does not take into account their facility in the national language or their acculturation status. It is well known, for example, that the four major minority groups in North America demonstrate significant cultural differences on objective tests. Although these differences result in psychopathology-culture confounding and erroneous inferences concerning psychopathology inferences, corrections for acculturation status and linguistic competence have never been routinely applied (Dana, 2005). The normative data for new instruments must include representative sampling of minority populations with controls for acculturation status and linguistic competence. Subsequent research can compare these data with non-minority representative samples to provide evidence for the magnitude of differences in test performances due to cultural identity. Valid interpretation of new instruments for cultural minorities is predicated on cultural competency. Cultural competency includes knowledge of good ethnic research principles, methods, and culture-specific research literature. Cultural competency requires explicit cultural competency training and supervised multicultural assessment experience (Allen, 2007; Dana & Allen, 2008). Thus, in addition to new instruments for multicultural populations, professional training should include the background information and empirical knowledge necessary for ethical instrument interpretations. TEMAS: Unique, Practical, Available TEMAS meets the general cultural competence criteria, corrects for test bias, and provides an objective performance measure that examines both personality and psychopathology for children and adolescents (Costantino et al., 2007). TEMAS has been compared with other instruments used with children and adolescents in Europe e.g., the Once-Upon-A-Time Test 15
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(Fagulha, 1997), the Fairy Tale Test (Coulacoglou & Kline, 1995), the Four-Picture Test (Van Lennup, 1951), and Thematic Apperception Test (Hofer & Chasiolis, 2004). Translations of TEMAS have a distinctive potential usefulness for minority populations in several European countries (e.g., Italy, Spain) while the English version may be used in Great Britain and with English-speaking Europeans. However, in both Europe and the United States, TEMAS usefulness will be enhanced by cultural competency training for examiners. While culturally competent new instruments contribute a necessary step toward cultural competency, their effective use necessitates dramatic changes in mental health systems conducive to conditions facilitating quality care. New Instruments and Existing Systems of Care In the United States of North America and United Europe, systems of care minimize cultural issues for different reasons. In the US, there is still limited access and a paucity of relevant services for multicultural populations (Snowden & Yamada, 2005). Despite the beginnings of valid multicultural education (Rogers, 2006) and documented beneficial outcomes of cultural competency (Smith, Constantine, Dunn, Dinehart & Montoya, 2006), informed and experienced clinicians are reluctant to discuss issues of oppression with the one-third of their clients who are multicultural. In United Europe, Centers of Excellence (Fernando, 2005) and practice models have been developed (Dana, 2007c) in a context of mapping available services for multicultural populations across countries (Ingleby & Watters, 2005; Watters & Ingleby, 2004). In both the United States and in the European Community, it is necessary to address the effects of decreasing welcome upon resident and migrant minority populations. Welcome is a complex social phenomenon that can potentially facilitate or inhibit the development of social policy for use of resources necessary for health and mental health care (Dana, 2007b).
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Quality Care The assessment issues discussed in this section are inseparable from societal goals for quality care for all populations within national borders. Implementations of quality care goals are still largely controlled within national frameworks of discourse and funding. Nonetheless, globalization has facilitated a social transformation process with common, shared problems of global migrant and immigrant communities requiring international cooperation across professional disciplines. Only such transnational cooperation can achieve social, economic, and political solutions that permit quality care for all population segments. Quality care necessitates acknowledgment of racial/cultural origins of similarities and differences in psychopathology and personality (Draguns, 2006). New assessment tools are needed to describe human psychopathologies and problems-in-living, particularly those problems arising from oppression and conflict between individuals among minority and majority populations (Dana, 2007d). Interventions are now required not only to diagnose universal psychopathology, but also for culture-bound psychopathologies and non-pathological problems (Dana, 2007a; Miranda et al., 2005). Training standards for cultural competency education and training must be mandated in multicultural societies. Methods for providing mental health and social care services to multicultural populations require development and validation (Dana & Allen, 2008). Finally, cost-effective service models with documented beneficial outcomes are required to meet the needs of local and national multicultural populations (Costantino, Dana & Malgady et al., 2007). PART 2. Standardization of TEMAS in the United States Development of TEMAS
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Given the dearth of psychological literature on personality assessment of culturally and linguistically diverse youngsters (Dana, 2000; Padilla, 1979) and in the light of the pressing need for a projective/narrative technique oriented toward ethnic cultures and to create culture-specific norms for projective tests (Exner & Weiner, 1994), the TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) multicultural narrative test was developed with culturally relevant stimuli. There are parallel minority and nonminority versions of TEMAS pictures (Costantino, 1978, 1987) embodying the following features; structured stimuli and diminished ambiguity to pull for specific personality functions; chromatically attractive, ethnically relevant and contemporary stimuli to elicit diagnostically meaningful stories; representation of both negative and positive intra personal functions in the form of conflicts or dilemmas that require a solution; and objective scoring of both thematic structure and content. The rationale for these and other departures from traditional projective techniques (e.g. reduced ambiguity, color) is based on empirical research (Costantino et al., 2007).TEMAS has the same meaning in several languages, in English, TEMAS is an acronym for Tell Me A Story; in Spanish, and it means themes, in Italian, TEMA, means theme. This felicitous cross-linguistic combination of names represents the most appropriate title for a narrative test (Costantino, 1987; Costantino, Malgady & Rogler, 1988; Ritzler, 1993). The TEMAS represents a number of departures and improvements relative to previous projective/narrative tests. First, the TEMAS test was specifically developed for use with children and adolescents (Ritzler, 1993). Second, the test comprises two parallel sets of stimulus cards, one set for minorities and the other for non-minorities, thus making it multicultural in nature. Third, the test abandons the construct of pictorial ambiguity common to the TAT and Rorschach to pull for specific conflicts and utilizes structured stimuli with pictorial problem solving (Costantino, Flanagan & Malgady, 2001; Flanagan et. al., 2004; Flanagan & Di Giuseppe, 1999).
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Fourth, the test has normative data for black, Puerto Rican, other Hispanic, and white children; thus increasing multicultural validity and diminishing test bias against minorities (Dana, 1993; Ritzler, 1996). Fifth, the stimulus pictures are in color, which attracts and maintains childrens interest (Costantino, 1978; Costantino et al., 1988) and facilitates narratives of emotional states (Lubin, 1995; Murstein, 1961; Thompson & Bachrach, 1951). TEMAS Pictures The TEMAS stimuli were created by a young, upcoming artist, Phil Jacobs, who worked closely with the test author (Costantino, 1978; 1987) in an attempt to depict a variety of psychosocial situations. The stimuli embody a wide variety of problematic life situations and experiences in inner city impoverished environments, such as familial scenes within the home, solitary dreamlike and fantasy states, street scenes involving peers and adults, sports activities, and situations occurring in school settings. The antithetical nature of the situations portrayed in the pictures enables positive or negative feelings to be projected in stories and manifested as adaptive or maladaptive resolutions of the underlying genotype motivation. These situations pull themes expressive of varying degrees of psychopathology, ranging from severe pathology (e.g., morbidity, suicidal ideation, depression, impulsivity, isolation, delusion) to highly adaptive functioning. Personality Functions and Pictures- Inter-Judge Reliability. The nine personality functions were designed and psychometrically tested to pull for a minimum of two to a maximum of four personality functions; however pictures Nos. 10B(Boy) & G (Girl) and 20 pull for only one personality function. Specific functions for each picture are denoted by a triangle in the scoring boxes of the Personality Functions as shown in the Record
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Booklet (see TEMAS manual: Costantino et al., 1988). The pull(s) for each picture were empirically assessed. The standardization study (Costantino et al. 1988) assessed the degree of inter-judge agreement about picture pulls in a sample of 14 clinical and school, culturally diverse psychologists. The percentage of agreement among 14 clinicians ranged from 100% on picture 1B&G for Interpersonal Relations to 71% on picture 15 for Achievement Motivation. The original TEMAS in the US was designed for use with minority and non-minority children and adolescents aged 5 to 18. The instrument has two parallel versions: minority for Blacks and Hispanics/Latinos, and non-minority for whites. There are several versions of TEMAS which focus on various culturally and linguistic diverse populations, thus making this instrument globally multicultural. A third Asian-American version underwent a preliminary standardization in Taiwan (Yang, Kuo and Costantino, 2003). A fourth multicultural TEMAS was standardized in Italy with Italian, Latino and Arab children. Fifth and sixth versions of TEMAS- the Jewish and Arab TEMAS are in the process of being standardized (Costantino, Malgady, Waxman, Primavera, Erhard, & Maman, 2011). And the seventh version, the Chinese and Filipino TEMAS is the pre-process of being validated by the Catholic University of Milan team (negotiated with) for Giunti OS Publishers. Each version is comprised of a short form of nine pictures, which can be completed within 40-50 minutes and the long form of 23 cards, which can be completed within 100-120 minutes. The short form is usually administered in clinical practice, which can be augmented by two or three additional pictures pulling for the specific symptoms presented by a given child (e.g. aggression, anxiety/depression, sexual identification conflicts). Theoretical Framework
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The theoretical formulation of TEMAS is largely multi model: social-cognitive and narrative theoretical, which posits that personality development occurs within a socio-cultural system where individuals internalize the cultural values and beliefs of family and society (Bandura, 1977, 1986, 1989, 1991; McAdams, 1994, 2006; Piaget & Inhelder, 1971; Sullivan, 1953). Personality functions are learned initially through modeling (Bandura, 1977) and are then developed through verbal/narrative and imaginal processes (McAdams & Pals, 2006; Paivio, 1971; Piaget & Inhelder, 1971; Singer & Pope, 1978). When a narrative test pictorial stimuli are similar to the situations in which the personality functions were originally learned, these functions are attributed to the characters and situations in the cards and narrated as personal life events and life stories (Auld, 1952; Bandura, 1986; Bruner, 1986; Mancuso & Sarbin, 1983; Sarbin, 1986; Teglasi, 2001). More specifically, Sarbin (1986) and Mancuso and Sarbin (1983) proposed the narrative mode as a root metaphor in psychology, which allows psychologists to understand individuals through their narratives or life histories. Narrative theory suggests that there is an interrelationship between cultural narrative and personal narrative because culture influences the individual and in turn the individual narrative reflects the culture in which they are told (Kirkman, 2002). In addition, there is a mutual relationship between individual and cultural narrative and the socio cognitive psychology of human development such as Banduras (1986) and Piaget and Inhelder (1971) Singer and Pope (1978) because those social learning theorists explain the development of the self through different stages of life span through the narrative identity of the individual. Narrative identity is developed within the matrix of social and cultural milieu (Bruner, 1990) and through telling about our self is that we develop a sense of the self (Mancuso & Sarbin, 1983).
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The effectiveness of a culturally competent multicultural narrative technique in personality assessment such as the TEMAS provides an adequate fit with the reformulation of personality as narrative identity by McAdams and Pals (2006) and with Howards (1991) view of psychotherapy as a technique in story repair (Costantino, Malgady & Rogler, 1996). Hence, TEMAS narrative test, may correspond to a valid multicultural assessment in understanding why life stories go wrong among culturally diverse individuals; thus linking culturally appropriate assessment to treatment. TEMAS Administration The TEMAS administration is a reformulation of both the traditional TAT administration (Murray, 1943) and the Rorschach Comprehensive System administration (Exner, 1993). In order to reduce the examiners bias, the test should be administered in the childs dominant language by an examiner fully familiar with the child cultural background, and proficient in the standardized administration of the test. Individual administration is important because the normative data were obtained by this method. Unlike the TAT and Rorschach, the TEMAS cards are administered in a random order, except for Picture 1, which is administered first because of its non-threatening content. The administration is comprised of: establishing rapport with the examinee, General Instructions: I have several interesting pictures that I am going to show you. Look at the persons and places in the pictures and tell me a complete story about each picture, one that has a beginning and end. Specific Instructions of Temporal Sequencing: The story should answer three questions: What is happening in the picture now? What has happened before? And what will happen in the future? And Structured Inquiries of all those indices missing from the stories such as What the main character is thinking and feeling upon
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resolution of the storys conflict/problem to make sure that the story is complete and thus scorable. Problem Solving Scoring System The TEMAS scoring system was developed as an objective, problem solving (Costantino, 1987; Flanagan, 1999) and/or scoring by consensus system. The TEMAS scoring system is comprised of 9 personality functions, 18 cognitive functions and 7 affective functions. The nine personality functions represented by the TEMAS refer to themes of: Interpersonal Relations, control of Aggression, coping with Anxiety/Depression, Achievement Motivation, Self-Concept, Delay of Gratification, Sexual Identity, Moral Judgment, and Reality Testing. These are scored on a scale from 1 (highly maladaptive) to 4 (highly adaptive) when these functions are present in the stories. An N-Score (N) is entered in the appropriate triangle on page 2 of the Record Booklet whenever an examinee fails to verbalize an expected theme, which is pulled by the specific card, but is not explicitly present in the narrative. Conversely, a specific personality function, which was designed to be pulled by a particular card, is not present in the corresponding story, is scored in the appropriate box outside the triangle. The cognitive functions are scored in seconds and minutes for Reaction Time, Spontaneous Time and Total Time. Scoring is dichotomous (1 = missing, 0 = not missing) i.e., when the specific function is missing from the story vs. when it is recognized in the story, for the functions of Conflict (Problem Solution), Sequencing, Imagination, Relationships, Inquiries, Omissions and Transformations. The affective functions are scored as 1 when they are present in the stories and blank when they are not mentioned. Standardization Sample 23
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TEMAS was standardized on a sample of 642 children (281 males and 361 females) from public schools in the New York City area. These children ranged in age from 5 to 13 years, with a mean age of 8.9 years (SD = 1.9). The total sample represented four ethnic/racial groups: Puerto Ricans, other Hispanics, Blacks, and Whites. Data on the socioeconomic status (SES) of the standardization sample indicate that these subjects were from predominately lower and middle-income families. Quantitative Scales and Qualitative Indicators. The nature of the distribution of some TEMAS functions made it impractical to convert them to standard scores, because scores other than zero were rare in the standardization sample. These functions were designated Qualitative Indicators. The TEMAS functions that had relatively normal distributions were designated Quantitative Scales. Qualitative indicators are only scored on certain Cognitive and Affective functions. Stratification of the Standardization Sample. In the standardization sample, significant correlations of low magnitude were found between age and many of the TEMAS functions. Correlations ranged from .01 to -.52. Although these correlations are small, it is believed that they reflect real developmental trends in the childrens cognitive, affective, and personality trends, while still retaining respectable sample sizes, age was collapsed into three age-range groups: 5 to 7 year olds, 8 to 10 year olds, and 11 to 13 year olds. Short Form. Means and standard deviations for the short form were derived by extracting the scores of the 9 pictures from the 23-pictures protocols of the standardization sample. The correlations between the 23-pictures long form of TEMAS and the 9-picture short form for each function were computed separately for the total sample and for each ethnic/racial group. The
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correlation between the long form and the short form was uniformly high across samples. The median correlation between forms was .81 for the total sample, .82 for Whites, .80 for Blacks, .80 for Puerto Ricans, and .81 for other Hispanics. Reliability: Internal Consistency Internal consistency refers to the degree to which individual TEMAS pictures are interrelated in measuring particular functions. Long Form. Internal consistency reliabilities of the TEMAS functions were derived using a sample of 73 Hispanic and 42 Black children. The internal consistency reliability coefficients for the Hispanic sample ranged from .41 for Ambivalent, and affective function, to .98 for Fluency, a cognitive function, and had a median value of .73. For the Black sample, coefficients ranged from .31 for Setting Transformations to .97 for Fluency, with a median of .62. Reaction time, Fluency, and Total Time demonstrated high levels of internal consistency in both Hispanic and Black samples. However, in general, Omissions and Transformations of perceptual details (Main Character, Secondary Character, Event, and Setting) had lower magnitudes of internal consistency than other TEMAS functions in both samples. This may be attributable to the fact that these two functions, being clinical scales, tend to occur less frequently, in nonclinical children (Costantino, Coln-Malgady, Malgady, & Prez, 1991). The internal consistency reliabilities for Omissions and Transformations were uniformly lower for Blacks than for Hispanics. Conflict, Imagination, and Relationships demonstrated moderate-to-high internal consistency reliability in both ethnic/racial groups. The alpha coefficient for Sequencing, a cognitive function, was moderately high in the Hispanic sample but low in the Black sample. 25
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With respect to affective functions, reliability estimates in the Hispanic sample were highest for Happy, Sad, Angry, and Fearful, whereas in the Black sample, the highest reliability was evident for Sad, Angry, Neutral, and Ambivalent. With respect to personality, pictures pulling for Interpersonal Relations, Aggression, and Moral Judgment showed the highest levels of internal consistency in the Hispanic sample, whereas Anxiety/Depression, Achievement Motivation, Delay of Gratification, Self-concept, Sexual Identity, and Reality Testing had a low-to-moderate reliability. For Blacks, alphas were again uniformly lower than for Hispanics, with the highest reliabilities associated with Aggression and Moral Judgment. Low reliabilities for the personality functions may be due partially to the fact that personality function scores are based on relatively few TEMAS pictures. The coefficient alphas for the standardization sample, differentiated by ethnic/racial group membership for the long form, were, for the most part, in the moderate range, with a median alpha of .83 for the Quantitative Scales for the Total Sample. On these functions, the median reliability ranged from .80 for Black children to .69 for other Hispanic children. On the Short form, alphas were generally lower, with a median reliability of .68 for the Total sample on the Quantitative scales. Reliability coefficients for ethnic/racial groups on these functions ranged from a median coefficient of .65 for the White sample to .54 for the Black sample. Reliability coefficients on the Qualitative Indicators were lower, due, in large part, to the non-metric nature of the scoring system used with these scales. Interrater- Reliability. Interrater reliability was estimated in a study of the non-minority version of the TEMAS short form (Costantino, Malgady, Casullo & Castillo, 1991). Two experienced clinical psychologists (one with extensive training in scoring TEMAS and the other a newly trained scorer) independently rated 20 protocols. The results of this study indicated a 26
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high interrater agreement in scoring protocols for Personality Functions, ranging from 75%-95%. The mean level of interrater agreement was 81%, and in no cases were the two independent ratings different by more than one-rating scale-point. However, the interrater agreement for Personality Functions in the standardization study ranged from 31% to 100% (Costantino et al., 1988). The explanation for this discrepancy is that during the first study, which was conducted in 1983, the TEMAS scoring system was still undergoing changes, whereas in the second study, which was conducted in 1987, the scoring system and the instructions were completely formulated. Total Omissions and Transformations are generally moderate-to-high for both the Hispanic and the Black protocols. Little difference is evident as a function of ethnic/racial group. Raters generally showed greater agreement in scoring Omissions than Transformations. Although illogical synthesis and integration of ideas regarding resolution of Conflict, Sequencing, Imagination, and Relationships, generally occurred rarely in both samples, available estimates of correlations are suggestive of moderate-to-high interrater agreement. For the Black sample, coefficients ranged from .31 for Setting Transformations to .97 for Fluency, with a median of .62. Reaction Time, Fluency, and Total Time demonstrated high levels of internal consistency in both Hispanic and Black samples. However, in general, Omissions and Transformations of perceptual details (Main Character, Secondary Character, Event, and Setting) had lower magnitudes of internal consistency than other TEMAS functions in both samples. This may be attributable to the fact that these two functions, being clinical scales, tend to occur less frequently, in nonclinical children (Costantino et al., 1991). The internal consistency reliabilities for Omissions and Transformations were uniformly lower for Blacks than for Hispanics. Conflict, Imagination, and Relationships demonstrated moderate-to-high
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internal consistency reliability in both ethnic/racial groups. The alpha coefficient for Sequencing, a cognitive function, was moderately high in the Hispanic sample but low in the Black sample. With respect to affective functions, reliability estimates in the Hispanic sample were highest for Happy, Sad, Angry, and Fearful, whereas in the Black sample, the highest reliability was evident for Sad, Angry, Neutral, and Ambivalent. With respect to personality, pictures pulling for Interpersonal Relations, Aggression, and Moral Judgment showed the highest levels of internal consistency in the Hispanic sample, whereas Anxiety/Depression, Achievement Motivation, Delay of Gratification, Self-concept, Sexual Identity, and Reality Testing had a low-to-moderate reliability. For Blacks, alphas were again uniformly lower than for Hispanics, with the highest reliabilities associated with Aggression and Moral Judgment. Low reliabilities for the personality functions may be due partially to the fact that personality function scores are based on relatively few TEMAS cards. The coefficient alphas for the standardization sample, differentiated by ethnic/racial group membership for the long form, were, for the most part, in the moderate range, with a median alpha of .83 for the Quantitative Scales for the Total Sample. On these functions, the median reliability ranged from .80 for Black children to .69 for other Hispanic children. On the Short form, alphas were generally lower, with a median reliability of .68 for the Total sample on the Quantitative scales. Reliability coefficients for ethnic/racial groups on these functions ranged from a median coefficient of .65 for the White sample to .54 for the Black sample. Reliability coefficients on the Qualitative Indicators were lower, due, in large part, to the nonmetric nature of the scoring system used with these scales. Test-Retest Reliability (Short Form)
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Test-retest stability of the TEMAS functions was computed for the Short Form by correlating the results of two administrations, separated by an 18-week interval. The sample used in this study consisted of 51 subjects chosen at random from the 210 Puerto Rican students screened for behavior problems. Results indicated that TEMAS functions exhibited low-tomoderate stability over an 18-week period. The eight TEMAS functions with significant testretest correlations were Fluency, Event Transformations, Conflict, Relationships, Happy, Ambivalent, Anxiety/Depression, and Sexual Identity. First, test-retest correlations may be lowerbounds estimates of reliability in this case because different raters were employed at pre and post-testing. Therefore, they include error variance due to interrater reliability. Second, the indicators of this instrument have limited range and hence, the correlation may be attenuated. Third, the test interval was over four months, a lengthy period for reliability estimation, especially the younger the children, who are undergoing maturational changes (i.e., the trait itself may be changing developmentally over time). Validity Face Validity- TEMAS pictures were designed to pull for specific personality functions based upon the nature of the psychological conflict represented in each picture. As previously described in the Scoring section, all TEMAS pictures are scored for at least two and not more than four personality functions. Face validity was established by a panel of bilingual/bicultural expert clinicians. The percentage of agreement among 14 clinicians on the likely pulls of each TEMAS care revealed very high agreement (71%-100%) across the pictures, thus confirming the pulls scored for specific personality functions.
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Criterion-Related Validity- A group of 210 Puerto Rican children screened for behavior problems were administered a number of measures along with the TEMAS, and their adaptive behavior in experimental role-playing situations was observed and rated by psychological examiners. The measures administered included: the Sentence Completion Test of Ego Development (SCT; Loevinger, 1979, July) or its Spanish version (Brenes-Jette, 1987); the Trait Anxiety Scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC; Speilberger, 1973) or its Spanish version, Inventario de Ansiedad Rasgo-Estado Para Nios (Villamil, 1973); the Teacher Behavior Rating Scale (TBR; Costantino, 1980), and the parallel Mother Behavior Rating Scale (MBR: Costantino, 1980) in both English and Spanish. Finally, the children participated in four experimental role-playing situations, designed to elicit adaptive behavior. Results of multiple regression analyses indicated that TEMAS profiles significantly predicted ego development (SCT), r =. 49, p <. 05, disruptive behavior (DIS), r =. 51, p <. 05; and aggressive behavior (AGG), r=. 32, p<. 05. However, the multiple correlations for predicting trait anxiety were not significant. TEMAS functions accounted for between 10% (for AGG) and 26% (for DIS) of the variability in scores on the criterion measures. Predictive validity was established using hierarchical multiple regression analysis to assess the utility of TEMAS profiles for predicting post-therapy scores (n =123) on the criterion measures, independent of pretherapy scores. In the first step of the hierarchy, the pretherapy score on a given criterion measure was entered into the regression equation, followed in the second step by a complete TEMAS psychotherapy profile. Results of these analyses showed that pretherapy TEMAS profiles significantly predicted (p < .05) all therapeutic outcomes, ranging from 6% to 22% variance increments, except for observation of Self-concept of Competence. Variance explained in the outcome measures were: the Sentence Completion Test of Ego Development (14%); Trait
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Anxiety Inventory for Children (22%); Conners Behavior Rating Scale (6%); and observational tasks measuring delay gratification (20%); disruptive behavior (17%); and aggression (14%). Population Generalizability Clinical information provided by TEMAS profiling of personality, cognitive and affective functioning is generalizable with a high degree of confidence to multiple ethnic/racial groups in the 5 to 18 year-old range. Gender differences are relatively inconsequential based upon statistical comparisons of differential reliability and validity, as well as normative performance. Several multicultural and cross-cultural studies have shown TEMAS to be a valid assessment measure with culturally diverse youngsters in the USA and other foreign countries. Language of TEMAS administration has been thoroughly researched in English, Spanish, Italian, Cantonese, Taiwanese, Jewish, and Arabic. There are several versions of the TEMAS a global multicultural test, The American version is standardized and normed with Black, Puerto Rican, other Hispanics, and white youngsters, ages 5 to 13. The Italian version is normed on with Italian, Latin-American, and Arab children, ages 6 to 10. The Jewish version is being normed with orthodox and modern Jews, in both the US and Israel with youngster ages: 6 to 18. The Arab version will be standardized both in the US and Middle East with diverge populations, such as Lebanese, Tunisian, Egyptians, and Lybian youngster ages: 6 to 17. The Latino version is in the process of being standardized with Argentinean youngster ages: 6 to 17 and the Chinese version will be standardized with Chinese and Filipino youngster ages: 6 to 17. The TEMAS promises to provide personality and cognitive profiles with emic and etic validity of children and adolescents all around the world (Cardalda et al., 2008; Costantino et al, 2010; Costantino & Costantino, 2011; Costantino et al, 2011; Costantino et al.,, 2007; Costantino, Malgady, Casullo, & Castillo, 1991; Costantino & Malgady & Rogler, L.H. 1996, 1999; Costantino, Meucci, 31
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Fantini, Aschieri, & Bevilacqua, 2010; Costantino, Malgady, Waxman, Primavera, Erhard, & Maman, 2011) Dana, 1996; Cornabuci, 2000; Dupertuis, Silva-Arancibia, Pais, Fernndez, &, Rodino, V, 2004; Dupertuis & Ropaldo, 2001, Fantini, 2005; Sardi, 2000; Summo, 2000; Sulfaro, 2000; Walton, Nuttall, & Vzquez-Nuttall, 1997; Yang, Kou & Costantino, 2003). PART 3 Puerto Rican/Hispanic children using different TEMAS Administration formats The program of cross cultural research of TEMAS in Puerto Rico, and of Puerto Rican children in New York City has spanned more than a decade, covering many topics, among these the question of different testing formats for the TEMAS. Although the TEMAS was originally designed to be administered with an individual /oral format, a recent study evaluated the feasibility of using a group/written format that can be delivered in schoolbased settings (Cardalda et al., 2008; Cardalda et al., 2005).
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Method For this study, the TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) projective/narrative test was administered to Hispanic students in two different formats: individual/oral or group/written to Hispanic students. The students sampled in Puerto Rico, attended fifth and sixth grade and were administered either of two formats: individual/oral or group/written. Another sample of Hispanic students in New York, from fifth grader, was administered only the TEMAS group/written format. The study aimed to determine whether the TEMAS narratives of children varied in verbal Fluency, narrative Omissions and Transformations as a function of the administration format (individual/group) and site (Puerto Rico /New York). The TEMAS cognitive scale of
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verbal Fluency was analyzed to determine whether the two formats, group/written and individual/oral, were equivalent in verbal productivity. Verbal Fluency is defined by the TEMAS as the total word count used in a story, and indicates the length of a story, oral or written. Other TEMAS narrative functions explored in the study were Omissions and Transformations. Omissions refer to the completeness of the narrative elements of the story and are operationally defined by the character count, events, and settings that are depicted in the pictures but not mentioned in the story production. Transformations refer to the total number of perceptual distortions of the characters, events, and settings depicted in the pictures.
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Results To examine the effects of the independent variables of gender and administration format (individual vs. group) and to investigate whether there were any interactions between the two, raw scores of the verbal Fluency; Omissions and Transformations scales were analyzed using two-way analyses of variance (ANOVA). An alpha level of p.05 was established a priori and represented the criterion for statistical significance. Results showed a main effect for gender with female students responding with higher verbal fluency skills (M=938.58, SD=296.08) compared to male students (M=795.56, SD=253.44), [F (1,201) = 3.87, p = .05, 2 = .02]; ANOVA clearly showed that gender is significantly related to verbal fluency as it accounts for some of the variance in verbal fluency. No main effects for gender were found for omissions and transformations. Main significant effects for type of administration were found on the scores of omissions [F (1,201) = 24.37, p<.001, 2 = .11] and transformations [F (1,201) =5.37, p = .02, 2 = .03], indicating that the narratives of the group format were more complete and less distorted than the individual format. No significant main effects for type of administration were found for
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verbal fluency. No significant interaction effects of gender and type of administration were found for any of the scales. These significant findings represents a relatively small effect size (eta squared = .032). Discussion Results showed no significant differences in the verbal fluency of stories produced by the individual/oral or group/written format in PR. However, when comparing the verbal fluency of stories administered with group/written format, significant differences were found between the Hispanic children in PR and NY, showing lower verbal fluency in the latter group. Problems in language development and bilingual issues were noted In Puerto Rico and New York respectively, which may hinder verbal fluency. Based on these findings, the TEMAS group/written format is useful given the lack of significant differences in the verbal fluency of the stories produced by children. This is an important area of research since group testing is far less expensive than individual testing. Overall the TEMAS group/written method was indicated in most school-based scenarios and this is a valuable finding since it provides a technique to assess in a culturally competent manner a larger number of underserved at-risk children who may be at need psychologically. PART 4 Standardization and Validation of TEMAS with Italian and Hispanic school-age children in Italy Immigration in Italy During the last decade, Italy has become a country of emigrants reversing the historical trend from a country of immigrants. From 1880 to 1970 an estimated 26 million Italian immigrants left Italy for North and South America, Canada, Australia and other countries. The 34
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2006 U.S. Census indicated an estimated 17.8 million Italian Americans, or 6% of the U.S. population lived in the states, constituting a 14% increase over the 2000 US Census. Italian Emigration At the present there are 4.5 millions foreigners living in Italy and the rate is dramatically increasing, (Caritas/Migrantes 2009); especially after the spring 2011 political rebellions of Middle East countries such as Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. The foreign children born in Italy often called "G2", i.e. second generation, in the space of six years almost tripled, rising from 160,000 units in 2001 to 460,000 in 2007, not to mention children accompanying parents or joints through family reunification. A large number of migrant children show their presence in Italian public schools. In the last decade, the incidence of non-Italian pupils (based on national average) has increased from 1.1% in 1998/1999 to 6.4% in 2007/2008, with a percentage increase which reached value of 571%. Non-Italian pupils in the school year 2007-2008 were 574,133, with a percentage increase over the previous year by 14.5%, while the impact on the total number of pupils has risen from 5.6% to 6. 4%. The Traumatic Impact of Immigration The literature reports on the traumatic impact of immigration on the individuals, which seems to be associated to the reasons of immigration, the acculturation process in the host society, and the characteristics of the individual personality such as individual coping skills (Moro, 2002; 2005; Dana, 2005). Immigration involves a loss of cultural references, for example language, traditions and social supporting network, some kind of acculturative stress and the need to reorganize the individual personality to integrate aspects of the culture of origin and of 35
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the host culture (Dana, 2005). There seem to be three critical stages in the life of immigrant families and their children in Italy: (1) the primary relationship between mother and infants; (2) the first entrance in the Italian school system; (3) adolescence (Moro, 2002; 2005). The immigrants acculturation process generates a great deal of stress among immigrants, especially youngsters; in fact, 20% of children referred to Mental Health Services in Milan and vicinity are from immigrant families. They are referred mainly by the school for learning difficulties, conduct and emotional problems, and difficulties in socialization. To offer adequate mental health services to these new clients, the Catholic University of Milan has implement trainings on cultural competence for the mental health professionals; introduce the use of interpreters and intercultural mediators, and the transcultural clinical approach. Until now, less attention was given to the assessment practice and only very recently the specificities of the psychological assessment with multicultural clients are receiving attention. As a consequence, the need of culturally competent assessment instruments is becoming increasingly compelling. TEMAS Research in Italy There is a growing interest in TEMAS in Italy (Costantino, 1987; Costantino et al., 2007; Costantino et al. 1988) because it is a multicultural instrument, standardized in USA on different cultural groups, and provides a structured scoring system for the analysis of children stories; thus resulting in valid culturally competent personality and cognitive profiles. The interest in the TEMAS has promoted research in two different universities: in 2000 at University of Rome La Sapienza and since 2005 at the Catholic University of Milan. The research group at University La Sapienza of Rome in 2000 conducted correlational studies between selected TEMAS functions and selected scales of the CBCL (Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1991), used as criterion 36
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variables, with a sample of 71 Italian children aged 7 to 8 years old (Cornabuci, 2000; Sardi, 2000; Sulfaro, 2000; Summo, 2000;). The aim of this research was to assess the concurrent validity of the TEMAS personality functions, such as Aggression, Interpersonal Relationships and Moral Judgement. The first study focused on the Aggression function. The hypothesis was that the internal adaptive elaboration of aggression as measured by the TEMAS would correlate with control of aggression in overt behavior as measured by the CBCL. This correlation was positive and significant (r = -0.41, p = .000), so the results supported the hypothesis and confirmed the concurrent validity for the TEMAS function. The second study focused on the TEMAS function Interpersonal Relationships. The hypothesis stated that the internalising of adaptive interpersonal skills as measured by the TEMAS would correlate with adaptive social competence and control of aggression in the overt behavior, as measured by the CBCL. The study didnt confirm the correlation with the social competence as measured by the CBCL but confirmed the correlation between the internalising of adaptive interpersonal skills and the control of aggression in the overt behavior (r = -0.33, p = .002). The third study focused on the function Moral Judgement. The hypothesis stated that the development of an adaptive moral judgement as measured by the TEMAS correlated with more functional control of aggression in the overt behavior measured by the CBCL. The study confirmed the hypothesis, finding a significant correlation between the two variables (r = -0.29, p = .007). The significant research results of the Rome research group showed encouraging findings on the construct validity of some TEMAS functions, reached through an approach of single-function studies and the use of a sound criterion test. Following this first endeavour, at the Catholic University of Milan, a second research group in 2006 developed a systematic research project aiming to explore some aspects of the
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TEMAS which remained still understudied, focusing on both clinical and non-clinical areas, such as, psychometric characteristics of the TEMAS Short Form, normally used in clinical practice, which had not been used in the research at University La Sapienza; relationship between TEMAS and other criterion test than the CBCL; analysis of developmental changes in TEMAS scores considering a broader age-range; and the use of the test with a minority population in Italy (Fantini, Aschieri, Bevilacqua, Augello, 2007). The research program is structured in three main studies: the first study assesses the reliability of the TEMAS scoring system analysing the interrater agreement; the second study deals with the concurrent validity of the personality function Anxiety/Depression in clinical and non-clinical samples from a cross sectional study of children aged 6 to 10 years old , the criterion tests is the CDI (Kovacs, 1988) and the STAIC (Spielberg, 1973); the third study focuses on the collection of normative data on Italian children, Latino children from Ecuador and Peru and on Arab children from Morocco and Egypt, which constitute large minorities in Italy, the study will focus on non-clinical children aged 6 to 10 years old. Italian Standardization The TEMAS Italian Standardization project was conducted on a group of 297 children (153 females and 144 males) aged between 6 and 10 years, with an average age of 8.33 years (SD = 1.35). The children are divided into three ethnic groups: Italian (Italy-born children from families of Italian origin), Latin (origin of Ecuadorian and Peruvian children born to the country or in Italy) and Arabic (Egyptian and Moroccan children born in the country or in Italy).The TEMAS was administered to each child in the schools to which they belong. Parents of children had been previously asked permission through the school, after sending a communication in
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which the conditions were explained and the research objectives and the type of task that would be offered to children. Parents were also asked to complete a questionnaire on the child (Child Behavior Check-List, CBCL) (Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1991). The answer to the request for participation has been adequate for the group of Italian and Latin America, while it was more difficult to contact with Arab parents. It was hypothesized that this difficulty was partly linked to a form of care of these families, in a historical moment when the prevailing attitude toward the Arab-Muslim populations in the Italian and European society does not seem to support the development of a climate of openness and confidence. As a result of these difficulties, the Arab group is less numerous than that of the other two ethnic groups and children aged between 7 and 10 years, missing entirely the children of 6 years. The Latin American and Arab children at the time of administration lived in Italy for an average of 5.3 years (SD = 3.1).The research was conducted in some elementary schools (N = 20) of Lombardy. Inter-rater reliability The inter-rater reliability for the Italian Version for the functions ranged from .74 to .96. Effects of varying ages, socio-economic status, ethnicity and gender stratification were examined. Several correlations (Pearson's) were made to test the influence of the age variable on the scores obtained in the TEMAS. Consistent with U.S. data, have found significant correlations, from weak to moderate, between the age variable and different functions of TEMAS for each ethnic group considered. In particular, the Italian group, the correlations were significant and positive, with low to moderately high coefficients for the variables reaction time, fluency, aggressiveness, moral judgments, happy, sad and scared, and were found to be negative correlations between age and total transformation, Conflict and Imagination. In the group of Latin Americans, significant and positive correlations were found between the variable Age and 39
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Relationships, Aggression, Anxiety/depression, Moral judgments, Reality testing, and Anger, while significant negative correlations were found with Total time, Total transformations, and Conflict sequence. In the group of Arab children significant and positive correlations emerged between the Age variable and functions of Relationships, Aggression, Anxiety/Depression, Selfconcept, moral judgments, Examination of reality, while significant and negative correlations with Conflict. Changes in TEMAS Pictures for the Italian Version In order to make the pictures more contemporary it was necessary to do the following pictorial modifications. In cards 14B and 14G, the old record player was changed into a modern one. In cards 15M, the stolen old electronic objects were modified into new ones, and the baseball team was changed into a soccer team. In cards 17G and 17B, the American school grades of F and A, were modified into Italian school grades of 3 and 10 respectively. And in cards 19G, the American character of Wonder woman was changed into Super woman. Discussion The rationale for developing TEMAS by departing from the traditional features of the projective/narrative techniques with such modifications as the use of color, reduced ambiguity and an objective scoring is based on empirical research (Dana, 1993, 2000; Ritzler, 1993, 1996). Multicultural and cross-cultural research reports that the TEMAS test shows validity and clinical utility with culturally diverse children and adolescents in the USA, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Per, Italy and Taiwan. The TEMAS scoring system presents a systematic, and a psychometrically reliable and valid system to score the complexity of personal narratives. Its clinical utility is based on the design of structured pictures which depict characters that promote identification 40
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between the storyteller and the stimuli and on the development of a scoring system which closely captures the most salient aspects of the personal narratives; thus showing both emic and etic validity (Cornabuci, 2000; Costantino et al 1991; Costantino et al., 2007; Dana, 1993; Dupertuis & Ropaldo, 2001; Fantini, 2005; Sardi, 2000; Sulfaro, 2000; Summo, 2000; Walton et al. 1997; Yang et al. 2003). Language of TEMAS administration has been thoroughly researched in English, Spanish, Italian, Cantonese and Taiwanese, and is being validated in Jewish and Arab. (Costantino et al, 2011; Costantino et al 2011; Costantino et al., 1991; Costantino, Malgady & Faiola, 1997; Costantino, Malgady & Vzquez, 1981; Sardi, 2000; Yang et al., 2003). TEMAS has been validated in the Spanish-language and with culturally diverse youngsters, such as, Puerto Ricans in New York, other Hispanics in New York City USA, Mexicans in California, Salvadorians in Salvador, Puerto Rican in San Juan Puerto Rico, Argentinean in Buenos Aires. Furthermore, the Italian TEMAS standardization with Italian and Foreign youngsters in Italy is in progress at the Catholic University of Milan. The Jewish TEMAS is being standardized in the US with orthodox and modern Jewish children; and the Arab TEMAS is being standardized with Arab children. The TEMAS construction of problem-solving chromatic cards to assess coping skills in multicultural children, coupled with a dynamic-cognitive theoretical framework, a multicultural normative sample, and valid psychometric properties renders TEMAS as the only comprehensive assessment test constructed for racial/ethnic minority and nonminority youngsters (Dana, 2007). TEMAS uniquely considers multicultural assessment test criteria including cultural aegisis, theory, stimuli, service delivery, scores, norms, and interpretation. (Costantino, Dana, & Malgady, 2007, p.88). The test meets five of the seven criteria (Costantino et al., 2007). Consequently these solid theoretical and psychometric properties provide valid assessment of
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clinical cases. In addition, TEMAS when used complementary with other valid tests provides understanding of the overt and covert behavior of examinees, links assessment to treatment, and promotes positive treatment outcomes of multicultural children/adolescents (Costantino et al., 2007; Dana, 2007). Thus, this test can be employed as a cost-effective service in mental health and school settings and even in private practice. In closing, Fowers and Davidov (2006) reformulated Multiculturalism in psychology by emphasizing that scientific, social, ethical and moral principles are necessary and sufficient tenets for embracing, learning and practicing multiculturalism. TEMAS as an evidence based multiculturally informed instrument that takes into consideration the following constructs, the importance of the stimuli characteristics, normative data, and bias associated with lack of cultural sensitivity of test materials, and the requirement for the examiner cultural competence. In summary, TEMAS is unique, practical and available because it meets cultural competence criteria, corrects for test bias, provides an objective performance measure, and examines both psychopathology and personality of culturally diverse children and adolescents (Dana, 2007b). As such, the TEMAS instrument fits well within this reformulation of Multiculturalism.
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References
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Allen, J. (2007). A multicultural assessment supervision model to guide research and practice. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 38, 248-258. Allen, J., & Dana, R.H. (2004). Methodological issues in cross-cultural and multicultural Rorschach research. Journal of Personality Assessment, 82, 189-206. Allen, J., & Walsh, J. A. (2000). A construct-based approach to equivalence: Methodologies for cross-cultural/multicultural personality assessment research. In R. H. Dana (Ed.), Handbook of cross-cultural and multicultural personality assessment (pp. 63-85). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Allen, J., Vaage, A., & Hauff, E. (2006). Refugees and asylum seekers in societies. In D. Sam & J. Berry (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of acculturation psychology (pp. 198-219). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Atkinson, D. R., & Hackett, G. (2004). Counseling diverse populations (3rd Ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill. Auld, F., Jr. (1952). Influence of social class on personality test responses. Psychological Bulletin, 49, 318-332. Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Bandura, A. (1989). Social cognitive theory. Annals of child development, 6, 1-60.
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Bandura, A. (1991). Social cognitive theory of self-regulation. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 248-287. Brenes-Jette, C. (1987). Mothers contribution to an early intervention program for Hispanic children. Unpublished dissertation, New York University, New York City. Bruner, J. (1986). Actual Minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cardalda, E. B., Costantino, G., Len-Velzquez, M., Jimnez-Surez, V., Martnez, J. V., & Prez, M., (2005, August). Cross-cultural comparison with the TEMAS test using group versus individual methodology. Poster presented at 114th annual convention of the American Psychological Association, Washington, DC. Cardalda, E.B., Figueroa, M., Hernndez, M., Rodrguez, N., Martnez, J., Costantino, G., Jimnez-Surez, V., Len, M. (2008). Interpreting the TEMAS verbal fluency scale relative to language problems in Puerto Rican high risk children. In J. R. RodrguezGmez (Ed.), Antologa de Investigaciones de los Programas Acadmicos de la Universidad Carlos Albizu (pp. 269-286). San Juan, PR: Publicaciones Puertorriqueas. Cardalda, E.B., Santiago-Negrn, S., Jimnez-Surez, V., Len-Velzquez, M., Costantino, G., Martnez, J., Figueroa, M., Hernndez, M., & Rodrguez, N. (2005, July). New directions with the TEMAS test: Interpreting cognitive scales of the TEMAS relative to language problems in high risk Puerto Rican children. Oral presentation at the 9th European Congress of Psychology, Granada, Spain.
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Caritas/Migrantes (2009). Immigrazione Dossier Statistico. XIX Rapporto, Idos, Roma Castles, S. (2007). Twenty-first century migration as a challenge to sociology. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 33, 351-371. Cornabuci, C. (2000). Relationship between aggression and interpersonal relations in 7 and 8 years old Italian children. Unpublished Dissertation, Universita di Roma La Sapienza, Rome, Italy. Costantino, G. (1978, November). TEMAS, a new thematic apperception test to measure ego functions and development in urban Black and Hispanic children. Paper Presented at the Second Annual Conference on Fantasy and the Imaging Process. Chicago, IL. Costantino, G. (1980). Mother Behavior Rating Scale (MBRS). Hispanic Research Center, Fordham University: Bronx, NY. Costantino, G. (1980). Teacher Behavior Rating Scale (TBRS). Hispanic Research Center, Fordham University: Bronx, NY. Costantino, G., Malgady, R.G., & Vzquez, C. (1981). A comparison of the Murray-TAT and a new thematic apperception test for Hispanic children. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 3, 291-300. Costantino, G. (1987). TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story). Picture Cards. Western Psychological Services, Los Angeles, CA. Costantino, G., Coln-Malgady, G., Malgady, R.G., & Prez, A. (1991). Assessment of attention deficit disorder using a thematic apperception technique. Journal of Personality Assessment, 57, 87-95.
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Costantino, G., Dana, R. H., & Malgady, R. G. (2007). TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story assessment in multicultural societies. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Costantino, G., Flanagan, R., & Malgady, R. (2001). Narrative assessments: TAT, CAT, and TEMAS. In L. A. Suzuki, P.J. Meller, & J. G. Ponterotto (Eds.) Handbook of Multicultural Assessment (pp.217-236). Second Edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Costantino, G., Malgady, R. G., & Faiola, T. (1997, July). Cross-cultural standardization of TEMAS with Argentinean and Peruvian children. ICP Cross-Cultural Conference, Padua, Italy. Costantino, G., Malgady, R. G., & Rogler, L. H (1988). TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) Manual. Western Psychological Services, Los Angeles, CA. Costantino, G., Malgady, R.G., & Rogler, L.H. (1996). Development of TEMAS, A multicultural Thematic Apperception Test: Psychometric Properties and Clinical Utility. In G.R. Sodowsky & J. Impara (Eds.) Multicultural Assessment in Counseling and Clinical Psychology (pp. 85-136). University of Nebraska-Lincoln, NE: Buros Institute of Mental Measurements. Costantino, G., Malgady, R.G., Rogler, L.H., Casullo, M., & Castillo, A. (1991). Cross-cultural standardization of TEMAS in three Hispanic subcultures. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 13, 48-52.
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Costantino, G., Meucci, C., Malgady, R., & Rogler, L. (F. Fantini, F. Aschieri, & P. Bevilacqua, a cura di) (2010). Italian TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) Multicultural Test Manual. Florence, Italy: Giunti OS-Organizazioni Speciali, Publishers. Costantino, G., Malgady, R., Waxman, R., Primavera, L.H., Erhard, R., Maman, Y. (2011, August). Development of a new narrative test: the Jewish TEMAS. Poster sessions presented at the American Psychological Association 119th Convention, August 4-7, Washington, DC. Costantino, E, & Costantino, G. (2911, July). Multicultural Standardization of TEMAS (TellMe-A-Story) in Italy. Study presented as part of the International TEMAS Symposium at the 12th European Congress of Psychology, Istanbul, Turkey, July 3-7, 2011. Coulacoglou, C. & Kline, P. (1995). The Fairy Tale Test: a novel approach in projective assessment. British Journal of Projective Psychology, Vol. 40, no. 2, 10 - 31. Dana, R. H. (1993). Multicultural assessment perspectives for professional psychology. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Dana, R.H. (1996). Culturally competent assessment practice in the United States. Journal of Personality Assessment, 66, 472-487. Dana, R. H. (2000). Multicultural assessment of child and adolescent personality and psychopathology. In A. L. Comunian & U. Gielen (Eds), International perspectives on human development (pp. 233-258). Lengerich, Germany: Pabst Science Publishers. Dana, R. H. (2005). Multicultural assessment principles, applications, and examples. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
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Dana, R. H. (2006). TEMAS among the Europeans: different, complementary, and provocative. South African Rorschach Journal, 3(1), 17-28. Dana, R. H. (2007a). Clinical diagnosis of multicultural populations. In L. A. Suzuki, J. G. Ponterotto & P. J. Meller (Eds.), Handbook of multicultural assessment: clinical, psychological, and educational applications (3rd Ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Dana, R. H. (2007b). Culturally competent school assessment: Performance measures of personality. Psychology in the Schools, 44, 1-13. Dana, R. H. (2007c). Refugee assessment practices and cultural competency training. In J. P. Wilson & C. Tang (Eds.). The cross-cultural assessment of psychological trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder (pp. 91-112). New York: Springer-Verlag. Dana, R. H. (2007d). Multicultural issues in assessment. In B. Bolton & R. M. Parker (Eds.), Handbook of measurement and evaluation in rehabilitation (4th Ed.). Austin, TX: ProEd. Dana, R. H. & Allen, J. (2008). Cultural competency training in a global society. New York: Springer. Draguns, J. G. (2006). Culture in psychopathology-psychopathology in culture: Taking a new look at an old problem. In T. G. Plante (Ed.), Mental disorders of the new millennium: Vol. 2. Public and social problems (pp. 215-233). Westport, CT: Praeger. Dupertuis, D., G. & Ropaldo, M. (2001, August). Differences and Similarities between Argentinean and North American children. Paper presented at the American Psychological Association annual convention, San Francisco, Ca.
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Dupertuis, D.G., Silva-Arancibia, V., Pais, E., Fernndez, C., Rodino, V. (2004). Similarities and differences in TEMAS test functions in Argentinean and European-American children. Universidad de Buenos Aires Argentina. Exner, J. E. (1993). The Rorschach: A comprehensive system. (Vol. 1, 3rd Ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons. Exner, J.E. & Weiner, I.B. (1994). The Rorschach: A comprehensive system (Vol. 3). Assessment of children and adolescents (2nd Ed.). New York: Wiley. Fagulha, T. (1997). A prova era uma vez Manuel e Material (2nd Ed.). The Once Upon a Time Technique. Manual and Material. Lisbon: CEGOC/TEA. Fantini, F. (2005). Risvolti teorici e applicativi in contesto multiculturale. Unpublished Dissertation. Facolt Psicologia, Universit Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano, Milan, Italy. Fantini, F., Aschieri, F., Bevilacqua, P., & Augello, C. (2007, July) TEMAS. Multicultural validity and clinical utility in Italy. Oral presentation at Xth European Congress of Psychology, Prague, Czech Republic. Fernando, S. (2005). Multicultural mental health services: Prospects for minority ethnic communities in England. Transcultural psychiatry, 42, 420-436. Flanagan, R. (1999). Objective and projective personality assessment: The TEMAS and the Behavior Assessment System for Children, self report of personality. Psychological Reports, 48, 865-867.
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Flanagan, R., & Di Giuseppe R. (1999). Critical review of the TEMAS: A step within the development of thematic apperception instruments. Psychology in the Schools, 36 (1), 2130. Flanagan, R., Losapio, G., Greenfeld, R., Costantino, G., Hernandez, A. (2004, July). Using narratives to assess childrens social problem skills. Presented at the 112th APA Convention, Honolulu, Hawaii. Fowers, B. J. & Davidov, B. J (2006). The virtue of multiculturalism: Personal transformation, character, and openness to the other. American Psychologist, 61, 581-594. Hofer, J., & Chasiolis, A. (2004). Methodological considerations of applying a TAT-type Picture-story test in cross-cultural research. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 35, 224-241. Howard, G. (1991). Culture tales: A Narrative approach to thinking, cross-cultural psychology and psychotherapy. American Psychologist, 46, 187-197 Ingleby, D., & Watters, C. (2005). Mental health and social care for asylum seekers and refugees: A comparative study. In D. Ingleby (Ed.), Forced migration and mental health: Rethinking the care of refugees and displaced persons (pp, 250-275). New York: Springer. International Organization for Migration (IOM) (2005). World Migration 2005/Costs and benefits of International Migration. Geneva: Author. Jenkins, S.R. (2008). Handbook of clinical scoring systems for thematic apperceptive techniques. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
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Kirkman, M. (2002). Whats the plot? Applying narrative theory to research psychology. Australian Psychologist, 37, 30-38. Kovacs, M. (1988). Childrens Depression Inventory (CDI), In Camuffo et al. (Eds.) Childrens Depression Inventory. Questionario di autovalutazione. Manuale. Firenze: OS. Loevinger, J., (1979, July). Construct Validity of the Sentence Completion Test of Ego Development. Applied Psychological Measurement, 3, 381-311. Lubin, N.M. (1995). The effect of color in the TAT on production of mentally retarded subjects. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 60, 336-370. Mancuso, J.C., & Sarbin, T.R., (1983). The Self-narrative in the enactment of roles. In T.R. Sarbin & K.E. Scheibe (Eds.), Studies in social identity (pp. 233-253). New York: Praeger. Miranda, J., Bernal, G., Lau, A., Kohn, L., Hwang, W., & LaFromboise, T. (2005). State of the science on psychosocial interventions for ethnic minorities. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 1, 113-142. McAdams, D.P. (1994). The person: An introduction to personality psychology (2nd Ed.). Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace & Company. McAdams, D. P., & Pals, J. L. (2006). A new Big Five: Fundamental principles for an integrative science of personality. American Psychologist, 61, 204-217. Moro, M.R. (2002). Genitori in Esilio. Milano: Cortina. Moro, M.R. (2005). Bambini di qui venuti da altrove. Milano: Franco Angeli.
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Murray, H.A. (1943). Thematic Apperception Test Manual. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Murstein, B. I. (1961). The role of the stimulus in the manifestation of fantasy. In J. Kagan & G.S. Lesser (Eds.), Contemporary issues in thematic apperceptive methods (pp. 229-287). Springfield, IL. Thomas. Okazaki, S., & Sue, S. (2000). Implications of test revisions for assessment with Asian Americans. Psychological Assessment, 12, 272-280. Padilla, A.M. (1979). Critical factors in the testing of Hispanic Americans: A review and some suggestions for the future. In R. Tyler & S. White (Eds.), Testing, teaching and learning: Report of a conference on testing (pp. 219-233). Washington, DC: National Institute of Education. Paivio, A. (1971). Imagery and verbal processes. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. (1971). Mental imagery in the child. New York: Basic Books. Ritzler, B.A. (1993). TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story). Journal of Psycheducational Assessment, 11, 381-389. Ritzler, B.A. (1996). Projective methods for multicultural personality assessment: Rorschach, TEMAS, and Early Memory Procedures. In L. A. Suzuki, P.J. Meller, & J. G. Ponterotto (Eds). Handbook of Multicultural Assessment: Clinical. Psychological and educational applications (pp.115-136). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Rogers, M. (2006). Exemplary multicultural training in school psychology programs. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 12, 115-133.
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Sarbin, T.R. (1986). Narrative psychology: The storied nature of human conduct. New Praeger. Sardi, G.M. (2000). Relationship between aggression and cognitive functions in conflict resolution in 7 and 8 years Old Italian children. Unpublished Dissertation, Universita di Roma La Sapienza, Rome, Italy. Sherwood, E. T. (1957). On the designing of TAT pictures, with special reference to a set for an African people assimilating Western culture. Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 161-190. Singer, J. L. & Pope, K. (Eds.). (1978). The power of human imagination: New Methods in psychotherapy. New York: Plenum Press. Smith, T. B., Constantine, M. G., Dunn, T. W., Dinehart, J. M., & Montoya, J. A. (2006). Multicultural education in the health professionals: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 53, 132-145. Snowden, L. R., & Yamada, A. (2005). Cultural differences in access to care. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 1, 143166. Spielberger, C.D. (1973). State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC). Redwood City: Mind Garden. Sue, S., & Zane, N. (1987). The role of culture and cultural techniques in psychotherapy. American Psychologist, 42, 37-45. Sulfaro, C. (2000). Relationship between aggression and moral judgment. Unpublished Dissertation, Universita di Roma La Sapienza, Rome, Italy York:
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Sullivan, H.S. (1953). The interpersonal theory of psychiatry. New York: W.W. Norton. Summo, B. (2000). Relationship between aggression and emotional functions in conflict resolution of 7 and 8 years old children. Unpublished Dissertation, Universita di Roma La Sapienza, Rome, Italy. Teglasi, H. (2001). Essential of TAT and other storytelling techniques assessment. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Thompson, C.E., & Bachrach, J. (1951). The use of color in the Thematic Apperception Test. Journal of Projective Techniques, 15, 173-184. Trimble, J.E., Helms, J. E., & Root, M. P. P. (2003). Social and psychological perspectives on ethnic and racial identity. In G. Bernal, J. E. Trimble, A. K. Burlew, & F. T. L. Leong (Eds.), Handbook of racial and ethnic minority psychology (pp. 219-275). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Van de Vijver, F. (2000). The nature of bias. In R. H. Dana (Ed.), Handbook of crosscultural and multicultural personality assessment (pp. 87-106). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Van de Vijver, F. & Hambleton, R. K. (1996). Translating tests: Some practical guidelines. European Psychologist, 1, 89-99. Van de Vijver, F. J. R., & Phalet, K. (2004). Assessment in multicultural groups: The role of acculturation. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 53, 215-236.
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Van Lennup, D. J. (1951). The Four-Picture Test. In H. H. Anderson & G. L. Anderson A handbook of projective techniques & other devices for understanding the dynamics of human behavior (pp. 149-180). New York: Prentice-Hall. Villamil, B. (1973). Desarrollo del Inventario de Ansiedad Estado y Rasgo para nios. (Development of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children). Unpublished masters thesis, University of Puerto Rico. Walton, J.R., Nuttall, R.L., & Vzquez-Nuttall, E. (1997). The impact of war on the mental health of children: A Salvadoran study. Child Abuse & Neglect, 21, 737-749. Walton, J.R., Nuttall, R.L., & Vzquez-Nuttall, E. (1998, August). Effects of war on childrens motivation reflected in TEMAS Stories. In G. Costantino (Chair), Multicultural/cross-cultural motivation as assessed by TAT and TEMAS. Symposium presented at the 106th annual APA Convention, San Francisco, CA. Watters, C., & Ingleby, D. (2004). Locations of care: Meeting the mental health and social care needs of refugees in Europe. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 27, 549-570. Wiggins, J. S. (2003). Paradigms of personality assessment. NY: Guilford. Yang, C-M, Kuo, H., Costantino, G. (2003, July). Validity of Asian TEMAS in Taiwanese children: Preliminary results. Paper presented at the VII European Congress of Psychology, Vienna, Austria. (Eds.),
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Author Notes: The present chapter was adapted from the same-title symposium presented at the European Congress of Psychology 2007, Prague, Czech Republic and from the international TEMAS symposium at the European Congress of Psychology, Istanbul, Turkey, July 2011. Acknowledgements. The principal author would like to thank all those professionals who have been involved in doing research and in promoting TEMAS, prominent among those are: Robert Malgady, Lloyd Rogler, Elsa B. Cardalda, Richard H. Dana, Rosemary Flanagan, Louis. H. Primavera, Daniel Dupertuis and his team at the University of Buenos Aires, Pietro Lufo, Carolina Meucci, GianMarco Sardi, Barbara Summo, Pierangelo Sardi, Lisa A. Susuki, Mark Rand, Pietro Lofu , Vito Tummino, C-M Yang, Helen Tsui, and Maryse and Erminia Costantino. Special thanks to Francesca Fantini, Filippo Aschieri, Patrizia Bevilacqua Francesca Fantini from the Universit Cattolica di Milano for their contribution to the development of the TEMAS research program in Italy.
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Culturally sensitive/competent assessment of Puerto Rican adolescents in New York and its relationship to school achievement.
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Elsa B. Cardalda Ponce School of Medicine and Health Sciences Interamerican University of Puerto Rico
Giuseppe Costantino Touro College Lutheran Medical Center/Lutheran Family Health Centers
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Abstract This study explores the relationship between the school functioning of Puerto Rican adolescents in New York and their conflict resolution/problem solving skills as assessed by the personality and cognitive scales of the TEMAS test. The TEMAS, a culturally sensitive projective/narrative test was administered to a sample of 74 Puerto Rican students in grades six, seven and eight. In addition, school functioning data was collected regarding the students standardized achievement tests and their teachers performance report. Significant moderate Pearson correlations were found among several of the TEMAS scales and the school achievement and performance measures. Results obtained are discussed in terms of their implications for the development of culturally sensitive/competent psychological tests and the utility of the TEMAS in school settings. Key words: TEMAS test, School achievement of Puerto Rican children, Culturally
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sensitive/competent assessment Resumen El estudio explora la correlacin entre el funcionamiento escolar de adolescentes puertorriqueos en Nueva York y sus destrezas de resolucin de conflictos segn evaluadas por las escalas cognitivas y de personalidad de la prueba TEMAS. El TEMAS, una prueba proyectiva/narrativa culturalmente sensitiva, se administr a una muestra de 74 estudiantes puertorriqueos de sexto, sptimo y octavo grado. Adems, se recogi informacin sobre el funcionamiento escolar a travs de exmenes de aprovechamiento estandarizados y reportes de ofrecidos por los maestros. Los resultados arrojan una correlacin de Pearson moderadamente significativa entre varias de las escalas de la prueba TEMAS y las medidas de aprovechamiento y desempeo escolar. Los
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resultados obtenidos son discutidos en trminos de sus implicaciones para el desarrollo de pruebas psicolgicas culturalmente sensitivas/competentes y la utilidad de la prueba TEMAS en escenarios escolares. Palabras claves: prueba TEMAS, Logro escolar en estudiantes puertorriqueos, Evaluacin sensitiva/culturalmente competente
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Introduction The study of the school achievement of Puerto Rican children and their particular clinical needs as a minority group in New York is an urgent matter. A study conducted by the Center of Puerto Rican Studies (De Jess & Vsquez, 2005) using educational data from New York shows that not only Latino school-age students have the highest dropout rate of all groups, but that since the last decade dropout figures may have actually increased. The majority of Latino students are dropping out approximately between the ninth and tenth grades, which points out the need for preventive intervention middle school. Specific educational data on Puerto Ricans is limited because Puerto Ricans are often labeled globally as Hispanics or Latinos (Nieto, 1998). This categorization makes it difficult to recognize the differences between Puerto Ricans, Mexican Americans, Cubans, Dominicans, and Central and South Americans. Nevertheless, one of the few investigations centered on Puerto Rican students in the US found that this group had the lowest educational outcomes within Latino groups (Nieto, 1995). The dropout rate of Puerto Rican children has provoked a debate in terms of whether this indicator is related to the students cognitive-intellectual deficits, or to biased standardized assessment (Costantino, 1992, 1993; Costantino, Dana & Malgady, 2007; Costantino & Malgady, 1996; Costantino, Malgady, & Rogler, 1988; Dana, 1993, 1996, 2005; Malgady, Rogler, & Costantino, 1987). A controversial issue in the delivery of effective educational and mental health services for Hispanic/Latino youth is the questionable cultural sensitivity of standard educational and psychological assessment and diagnostic procedures with limited documented reliability and validity for ethnic minorities. The propriety of assessing ethnic/racial minorities with instruments conceived, standardized and validated from a White middle-class perspective has been questioned for decades (Costantino, 1992, 1993; Dana, 1993,1996, 2005; 60
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Malgady et al., 1987; Olmedo, 1981; Padilla 1979, 1992). The prerequisite to deliver effective educational and mental health services to minority populations is to conduct culturally sensitive/competent psychological evaluations appropriate for ethnic/racial minority students. But most of the existing tests are designed for European-Americans and these instruments fail to measure constructs that are specific to each culture. The failure to recognize cultural diversity may lead to interpret the findings of personality tests in a way that suggests a higher psychopathology than it actually exists (Dana, 1996). For instance, Paniagua (2005) has stated that some practitioners have a tendency to see pathology or mental health problems in members of an ethnic group mainly because the psychometric properties of the instruments used to screen these clients are not appropriate for the assessment of non-Anglo-American groups. Despite years of rhetoric, litigation in the public domain, special considerations in government funding policies, ethical standards, and ethnic minority caveats in the testing procedures and policies established for professional practice (e.g. American Psychological Association Guidelines on Multicultural Education, Training, Research, Practice, and Organizational Changes for Psychologists, 2003) there are still few psychological instruments validated for minority children. The TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) test is one of the few instruments standardized with multicultural norms for Hispanic/Latino and Puerto Rican children (Costantino, 1987; Costantino, Dana, & Malgady, 2007; Costantino, Malgady, Casullo, & Castillo, 1991; Costantino, Malgady, Rogler & Tsui, 1988, Costantino, Malgady & Rogler, 1988). The TEMAS test was developed with culturally relevant stimuli and is designed to assess personality, cognitive and affective functions as manifested in conflict/problem-solving situations.
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Research with a non-biased, culturally competent psychological test such as the TEMAS, can provide some understanding into how adaptive conflict resolution skills are associated with successful school functioning. There are some studies available that explore the relationship between TEMAS personality profiles and school achievement in Hispanic/Latino students. A study with Mexican American children concluded that the TEMAS did not penalize for lack of acculturation and was a more culturally sensitive projective test to assess school adjustment and achievement among Mexican American children than the Roberts Apperception Test for Children (RAT-C) (Bernal, 1991). Another study assessing the impact of war on the mental health and adaptive behavior of Salvadorean children indicated a very strong correlation between Achievement Motivation as measured by the TEMAS and adaptive behavior and school achievement (Walton, Nuttal, & Vzquez-Nuttal, 1995). Furthermore, recent work in Puerto Rico has shown significant Pearson correlations between TEMAS scales (Verbal Fluency, Aggression, Achievement Motivation, and Moral Judgment) and school grades (Cardalda, Costantino, Ortiz-Vargas, Len-Velzquez, & Jimnez-Surez, 2007). This study explored conflict resolution/problem solving skills in Puerto Rican students attending middle school. The main hypothesis was that the TEMAS personality scales (Interpersonal Relations, Control of Aggression, Achievement Motivation, Delay of Gratification, and Self-concept of Competence) and cognitive scales (Verbal Fluency, Narrative Omissions, Recognition of Conflict, Temporal Sequencing, Narrative Imagination, Relationships among Characters, and Narrative Transformations), would correlate with school achievement and performance measures as measured by standardized reading and math achievement tests, and student performance ratings by the teachers). See Table 1 for operational definitions of the TEMAS variables of interest.
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Method Design Sex, grade and number of years in New York were analyzed as potential covariates to the correlations examined between the TEMAS variables of interest with the school achievement and performance measures. Correlations between the TEMAS variables with the achievement and performance measures were conducted for each grade separately. Participants Seventy-four Puerto Rican students (30 males, 44 females) from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City participated in this study. These students were enrolled in grades six (n = 25), seven (n = 27), and eight (n = 22). Ages ranged from 11 to 15 years (M = 12.7; SD = 1.2). Students from this school district are mostly of low socioeconomic status as determined by federal parameters such as eligibility for school lunch and participation in school programs. The ethnicity of Puerto Rican students was identified by self report during the recruitment phase and with a student interview. The majority of students were born in New York (83.8%) and raised in New York (81.1%), whereas most of their parents were born in Puerto Rico (52.7% of the mothers and 60.8% of the fathers). TEMAS instrument The TEMAS short form was utilized for this study consists of nine chromatically attractive, ethnically relevant pictures that present dilemmas and children are required to develop narratives to describe these conflicts (Costantino, 1987). These narratives are then scored by rating the content and structure of the conflict resolution proposed by the child. The TEMAS test
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is normed for children ages 5-13 but can be used clinically for older adolescents (Costantino et al., 1988). Protocols of this latter age group are scored in accordance with the TEMAS Manual guidelines, but taking into consideration their developmental ages; subsequently, these protocols raw scores are compared with the normative scores of a 13 year old normative youngster of the same ethnic/racial background to generate T-scores and Percentile Cut-off scores. When writing a psychological report, however, the examiner must emphasize that these scores are obtained by the Method of the Normative Slide-down Technique, whereby the raw scores of these older adolescents are compared with a 13 year old youngster of the same ethnic/racial background in the normative sample (Costantino et al., 2007). Procedures Students were administered the short form of the TEMAS test and standardized test scores: reading- Degree of Reading Power, and math- California Achievement Test, collected from school records. The school performance measure was a global rating obtained from teachers interviews, who reported about the childs school functioning. Following authorization of school administrators and teachers, Puerto Rican students were recruited from regular education classrooms. Students were asked to bring home to their parents or guardians the informed consent letters explaining the studys purpose and other information relevant to the study. Bilingual (English/Spanish) consent letters were signed by the parents approving the release of academic records and allowing their children to participate in the study. Students received incentives worth approximately five dollars for their participation in the study.
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Language of test administration was predominately English, but Spanish was used when needed. Childrens narratives were tape recorded and all testing was conducted in the school setting. The examiner was blinded to the students school grades during the administration and scoring of the TEMAS. The inter-rater reliability of the TEMAS scales was assessed by comparing the scores independently given by the researcher with those generated by a second clinician, both trained in the TEMAS administration and scoring system (adequate reliabilities from .73 to .87 were obtained). Reliability was not calculated for Verbal Fluency since it required a simple word count. Results Overall, students exhibited (average) adaptive conflict resolution skills in their narratives. For the total sample, most personality functions were in the low-average range (where mean T = 50; SD = 10) indicating a functional adjustment in the areas of: Interpersonal Relations (M = 41.00; SD = 10.48), Control of Aggression (M = 40.45; SD = 7.75), Delay of Gratification (M = 47.70; SD = 13.55), and Self-concept of Competence (M = 44.46; SD = 10.70). However, Achievement Motivation was below-average (M = 39.11; SD = 13.08), indicating a mildly maladaptive development of this theme. Students showed high Verbal Fluency (M = 2,481 words; SD = 1,097). Narrative Omissions of the main characters, secondary characters, events and settings depicted in the pictures, showed a mean T-score of 35.97 (SD = 8.56), suggesting partially adaptive attentional functioning. The variable Recognition of Conflict showed that 50% of the students were able to 65
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perceive the psychological conflict in the stories. Narrative Imagination, as assessed by the projection of creative vs. descriptive information, showed that 81.1% of the students displayed a functional imaginative ability, whereas 18.9% were dysfunctional. Narrative Transformations, as assessed by the number of perceptual distortions of the main characters, secondary characters, events, and settings depicted in the pictures, showed that 77.0% of the students did not make significant Transformations, whereas 23.0% significantly did. The variables of Relationships among Characters and Temporal Sequencing were not analyzed since most students mastered these skills and these scales did not exhibit sufficient variability. Moderate significant positive correlations were found between the TEMAS variables of interest and the achievement and performance measures separately by grade level (see Table 2). For sixth graders, moderate Pearson correlations were found for: Interpersonal Relations and Reading, Interpersonal Relations and Math, Control of Aggression and Math, Achievement Motivation and Reading, Achievement Motivation and Math grades and Delay of Gratification and Math. For seventh graders, moderate correlations were found among: Achievement Motivation with Performance, and Delay of Gratification with Performance. For eighth graders, moderate correlations were found for: Achievement Motivation with Math and Achievement Motivation with Performance. Discussion The study showed that there are grade specific effects during middle school and that to some extent conflict resolution/problem solving skills as measured by the TEMAS was related to school achievement and performance. Puerto Rican students showed adequate verbal fluency and adaptive conflict resolution/problem solving skills when assessed with a non-biased
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psychological instrument. Students were resilient in many areas of their personality adjustment, but their results on Achievement Motivation were below normative expectations for their age. This fact is consistent with the underachievement shown by these children in the standardized measures of reading and math. Along these lines, Vlez and Saenz (2001) stated that academic expectations can affect academic performance, and that low achievement motivation can be related to low academic expectations from parents, teachers and society as a whole. Perceptualcognitive difficulties were noted such as recognizing the psychological conflict in the stories and distorting its narrative elements. Other areas of concern were exhibited in the cognitive scales of Narrative Imagination, and Narrative Transformations. However, Verbal Fluency was within age expectancy according to the norms. These findings support earlier research demonstrating a tendency in Hispanic children to show enhanced verbal fluency in the TEMAS test results due to the familiar cultural symbols and environmental settings presented in the pictures (Costantino, & Malgady, 1983). The cognitive variable of Narrative omissions was clinically significant in this minority at risk group and this is remarkable since in other TEMAS studies, the scale of Omissions accurately discriminated between clinical and normal groups (Costantino, Coln-Malgady, Malgady, & Prez, 1991). Further research is needed in order to explore the results of the present study and confirm the utility of culturally sensitive instruments such as the TEMAS in the evaluation of the variables associated to poor school achievement of at risk Hispanic students in the school systems. There were some methodological limitations in the study such as limited variability in the achievement scores; moderate lack of sensitivity of the TEMAS cognitive scales, and problems with the teachers rating of students performance.
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The results of the study present further evidence of the educational and clinical utility of the TEMAS test, encouraging its use in school settings. Such results add to a growing body of literature that TEMAS profiles, consisting of indices of personality and cognitive functioning, as associated to school achievement and performance. The significant correlations found, although moderate, lend themselves to an interpretation that the TEMAS seems an adequate evidencebased multicultural instrument to screen for early recognition of school problems, particularly for at risk Hispanic children in need of services.
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References American Psychological Association. (2003). Guidelines on multicultural education, training, research, practice, and organizational change for psychologists. American Psychologist, 56, 377-402. Bernal, I. (1991). The relationship between levels of acculturation, The Roberts Apperception Test for Children, and the TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) Test. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, California School of Professional Psychology, Los Angeles, CA. Cardalda, E. B., Costantino, G., Ortiz-Vargas, N., Len-Velzquez, M., & Jimnez-Surez, V. (2007). Relationships between the TEMAS Test and School Achievement Measures in Puerto Rican Children. Ciencias de la Conducta, 22, (1), 79-102. Costantino, G. (1987). TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) stimulus cards. Minority version. Los Angeles: Western Psychological Services. Costantino, G. (1992). Overcoming bias in educational assessment of Hispanic students. In K. F. Geisenger (Ed.), The Psychological Testing of Hispanics (pp. 89-98). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Costantino, G. (1993). School dysfunctions in Hispanic children. In E. H. Wender (Ed.), School dysfunctions in children and youth. Report of the Twenty-fourth Ross Roundtable on critical approaches to common pediatric problems (pp. 106-102). Columbus, OH: Ross Product Division.
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Costantino, G., Coln-Malgady, G., Malgady, R., & Prez, A. (1991). Assessment of Attention Deficit Disorder using a thematic apperception technique. Journal of Personality Assessment, 57, 87-95. Costantino, G., Dana, R. H. & Malgady, R. (2007). TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story Assessment in Multicultural societies. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Costantino, G., & Malgady, R. (1983). Verbal fluency of Hispanic, Black and White children on TAT and TEMAS, a new thematic apperception test. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 5 (2), 199-206. Costantino, G., Malgady, R., Casullo, M. M., & Castillo, A. (1991). Cross-cultural standardization of TEMAS in three Hispanic subcultures. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 13, 48-62. Costantino, G., Malgady, R., & Rogler, L. (1988). TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) Manual. Los Angeles: Western Psychological Services. Costantino, G., Malgady, R., Rogler, L., & Tsui, E. (1988). Discriminant analysis of clinical outpatients and public school children by TEMAS: A thematic apperception test for Hispanic and Black children. Journal of Personality Assessment, 52, 670-678. Dana, R. H. (1993). Cross-cultural personality assessment: A model for practice. Paper presented at the XIV International Congress of the Rorschach and other projective methods. Lisbon, Portugal. Dana, R. H. (1996). Culturally competent assessment practice in the United States. Journal of Personality Assessment, 66, 472-487.
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Dana, R. H. (2005). Multicultural assessment: Principles, applications and examples. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. De Jess, A., & Vsquez, D. W. (2005). Exploring the education profile and pipeline for Latinos in New York State. Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueos Hunter College (CUNY), Policy Brief, 2 (2). Malgady, R., Rogler, L., & Costantino, G. (1987). Ethnocultural and linguistic bias in mental health evaluation of Hispanics. American Psychologist, 42, 228-234. Nieto, S. (1995). A history of the education of Puerto Rican students in U.S. mainland schools: Losers, outsiders, or leaders? In J. A. Banks & C. A. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (pp. 388-411). New York: MacMillan. Nieto, S. (1998). Fact and fiction: Stories of Puerto Ricans in U.S. schools. Harvard Educational Review, 68 (2), 133-163. Olmedo, E. L. (1981). Testing linguistic minorities. American Psychologist, 36, 1078-1085. Padilla, A. M. (1979). Critical factors in the testing of Hispanic Americans: A review and some suggestions for the future. In R. W. Tyler & S. H. White (Eds.), Testing, teaching and learning: Report of a conference on testing (pp. 219-243). Washington, DC: National Institute of Education. Padilla, A. M. (1992). Reflections on testing emerging trends and new possibilities. In K. F. Geisinger (Ed.), The Psychological Testing of Hispanics (pp. 271-284). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
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Paniagua, F. (2005). General guidelines for the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of culturally diverse clients. In A. T. Pomponio, B. A. Bernstein & J. Selhorst (Eds.), Assessing and treating culturally diverse clients: A practical guide (pp. 5-29). California: Sage Publications. Vlez, W., & Saenz, R. (2001). Toward a comprehensive model of the school leaving process among Latinos. School Psychology Quarterly, 16 (4), 445-467. Walton, J., Nuttall, R. L., & Vzquez-Nuttall, E. (1995, August). The impact of war on the mental health of children: A Salvadorean study. Interamerican Society of Psychologists Annual Conference, San Juan, PR.
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Interpersonal Relations
Refers to the degree and quality of relatedness to parental and authority figures, siblings, and peers, as revealed by the TEMAS stories. Adaptive and maladaptive interpersonal relationships are defined by the respondents ability to synthesize the polarities of dependence-individuation, respect-disrespect, and nurturance-rejection. An adaptive
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interpersonal relationship refers to the individuals ability to relate to others in an age-appropriate manner free from conflicts and aggressive needs. Control of Aggression
Refers to the direct verbal and physical expression of the intent to kill, harm, or injure oneself or others, or to destroy property. An aggression fantasy/ideation reflects loss of impulse control, or acquired and maintained maladaptive social behavior.
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Achievement Motivation
Refers to the desire to attain a goal or to succeed in an endeavor that is measured by some standard of excellence. Achievement Motivation could refer to personal accomplishment or to competition with others in areas such as sports and games, school and learning, of vocation and avocation.
Delay of Gratification
Refers to the ability to forgo an immediate reward or gratification in order to await or work to achieve a greater future reward or gratification.
Self-concept of competence
Refers to the realistic self-perception of intellectual, social, physical, and vocational abilities, also it also refers to an individuals ability to master his or her environment.
Verbal Fluency
Refers to verbal productivity, which is determined by the total word count of each TEMAS story.
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Narrative Omissions of characters, events and settings Refers to a count of the characters, events, and settings that are depicted in the pictures but are not mentioned in an individuals thematic response. Refers to a count of the characters, events, and settings that are depicted in the pictures but are not mentioned in an individuals thematic response. Recognition of Conflict Refers to the recognition of interpersonal and intrapersonal polarities of personality functions depicted in a picture. Temporal Sequencing Refers to relating the order of events of the past (what happened before), to the present (what is happening now), and to the future (what will happen). Narrative Imagination Refers to the projection of information into the content of the story, as opposed to responding with themes that are stimulus-bound and relate only descriptive details of characters, events, and settings. Relationships among characters Narrative Transformations of characters, events and settings Refers to the identification of the characters and how they are related to each other. Refers to the identification of the characters and how they are related to each other.
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Source: TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) manual (1988).
Table 2 Significant correlations of TEMAS scales with Reading and Math Achievement Motivation and Performance Measures among sixth graders (n=25), seventh graders (n=27), and eighth graders (n=22)
TEMAS Scales
Reading
Math
Performance
Grade
Interpersonal Relations
.48*
ns
ns
.45*
ns
ns
ns
ns
ns
Control of Aggression
ns
ns
.34
.40*
Ns
ns
ns
.34
ns
Achievement Motivation
.53*
ns
ns
.43*
Ns
.47*
ns
.46*
.51**
Delay of Gratification
ns
ns
.30
.52**
.32
ns
ns
.39*
ns
Verbal Fluency
ns
ns
ns
Ns
.36
ns
ns
ns
ns
Recognition of Conflict
ns
ns
ns
Ns
-.38
ns
ns
ns
ns
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Narrative Imagination ns ns ns Ns Ns ns ns -.30 ns
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* p < .05; ** p < .01; ns = not significant Authors note: Based on a similar paper originally published in (2007) Ciencias de la Conducta, 22, (1), 79-102). Acknowledgements: the principal author would like to thank the help and assistance of Nyrma
Ortiz-Vargas, & Jos Martinez in preparing this article
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Critical period for the Achievement Motivation function among Hispanic Students
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Elsa B. Cardalda Ponce School of Medicine and Health Sciences Interamerican University of Puerto Rico
Giuseppe Costantino Touro College Lutheran Medical Center/Lutheran Family Health Centers
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Abstract Data from three studies measure the variable Achievement Motivation using the TEMAS multicultural projective/narrative test. The TEMAS scale of Achievement Motivation was
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examined in terms of levels of functioning and grade differences among students. Achievement Motivation was correlated with school functioning criteria in Hispanic/Latino children attending New York public schools in grades 3-12. Results indicated that in grades 6-8. Achievement Motivation correlated significantly with school functioning criteria such as reading, math, and performance ratings. Cross-sectional analyses found grade differences from grades 7-12, with students showing moderately maladaptive functioning in Achievement Motivation and relatively low school achievement scores in middle school. Results suggest that the 7th grade level may be a critical period for the development of Achievement Motivation and school attainment in Hispanic children. Key words: Achievement Motivation, Hispanic/Latino children, TEMAS test Resumen Datos de tres estudios miden la variable de Motivo de Logros utilizando la prueba multicultural proyectiva/narrativa TEMAS. La escala de Motivo de Logros de la prueba TEMAS se utilizo para examinar niveles de funcionamiento y diferencias entre grados de estudiantes Hispanos/Latinos de grados 3-12 en escuelas pblicas de Nueva York. Se encontr una correlacin significativa entre Motivo de Logros y criterios de funcionamiento escolar como lectura, matemticas, y puntuaciones de ejecucin en los grados 6-8. Anlisis transversales encontraron diferencias significativas entre los grados 7-12, con los estudiantes demostrando funcionamiento moderadamente mal adaptativo en Motivo de Logros y pobre ejecucin escolar
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en la escuela intermedia. Los resultados indican que el 7 mo grado puede ser un periodo crtico para el desarrollo de la Motivacin de Logro y la ejecucin escolar en jvenes Hispanos. Palabras claves: Motivacin de Logro, nios hispanos/latinos, prueba TEMAS
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Introduction Hispanic/Latino children in the large metropolitan cities throughout the United States experience serious educational and behavioral problems (Costantino, Vzquez, & Prez, 2010 ; Foster, Rollefson, Doksum, Noonan, Robinson, 2005; US Surgeon General Report on Children Mental Health, 2001). Acculturation, language, educational, and socioeconomic barriers have placed Hispanic/Latino youth at high risk of mental disorder, school achievement problems, alcohol and substance abuse, and the highest high school dropout risk of all ethnic/racial groups (APA Presidential Task Force on Evidence-Based Practice, 2006; Bernal, 1991; Bernal & Scharrn-Del-Ro, 2003; De Jess & Vsquez, 2005; Fry, 2005a; Fry, 2005b; Malgady & Costantino, 1998; Miranda, Bernal, Lau, Kohn, Hwang, & LaFromboise, 2005; Nieto, 2000; Padilla, 1992; Rogler, Malgady & Rodrguez, 1989; New York City Department of Education Statistical Summaries, 2008). School Achievement Disparities Academic achievement gaps between Hispanic/Latino and White students appear at all grade levels, with a dropout rate nearly four times greater than that of White students and double that of Black students (Report on the White House Strategy Session on Improving Hispanic Students Achievement, 2000). The majority of Hispanic students are dropping out approximately between the ninth and tenth grades, which points out the need for early preventive intervention. The alarming dropout rates of Hispanic/Latino students, has persisted for decades (Aspira of New York, 1983; Department of City Planning, 1994; New York City Board of Education, 1990Fry, 2005a, 2005b), thus, public schools may not foster the cognitive, emotional, and intellectual development of Hispanic/Latino children. In fact, a recent study conducted by the Center of
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Puerto Rican Studies (De Jess & Vsquez, 2005) using educational data from New York indicated that not only Hispanic students have the highest dropout rate of all groups, but that since the last decade dropout figures may have actually increased. Biased Assessment Another problem is that Hispanic/Latino children may be misassessed because most educational and psychological tests have been standardized on non-minority children (Costantino, Dana, & Malgady, 2007; Dana, 2007). To address the need of culturally sensitive and competent assessment, the TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) narrative/projective test was developed with culturally relevant stimuli, diminished ambiguity, and multicultural norms to assess personality as well as cognitive functions in both minority and non-minority children (Costantino et al., 2007; Costantino, Malgady & Rogler, 1988). There are a few studies using the TEMAS test to explore the relationship between personality profiles and school achievement in Hispanic/Latino students. A study with White and Mexican American children concluded that the TEMAS did not penalize immigrant Mexican children for lack of acculturation and was a more culturally sensitive projective test to assess school adjustment among immigrant Mexican American children than the Roberts Apperception Test for Children (RAT-C) (Bernal, 1991). Another study, assessing the impact of war on the mental health and adaptive behavior of Salvadorean children indicated a very strong correlation between Achievement Motivation as measured by the TEMAS and adaptive behavior, social adjustment and school achievement (Walton, Nuttall, & Vzquez-Nuttall, 1997). Furthermore, recent research in Puerto Rico has shown significant correlations between TEMAS scales (Verbal Fluency, Aggression, Achievement Motivation, and Moral Judgment) and school grades (see relevant articles in this Volume). 81
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Achievement Motivation Certain factors or conditions identified by parents and students seem to foster high academic achievement of Puerto Rican students. Some of these factors are: press for achievement, press for language development, high educational and occupational aspirations, strong family support system, family bond, optimistic outlook/lack of defeatism, discomfort with cultural stereotype/ reaction to teacher and community expectations, and school and extracurricular involvement (Hine, 1992). High parental expectations and aspirations play a role in the successful school achievement of gifted Puerto Rican students (Hine, 1992). A study (Antrop-Gonzlez, Vlez, & Garret, 2005) indicated that the motivation to succeed pushed by their families is a factor for academically successful Puerto Rican students. The influence of mothers and the obligation that students feel to make them proud, foster their high academic achievement, because they are the main source for advice and guidance regarding their education (Antrop-Gonzlez et al., 2005; Garret et al., 2002). Another factor is having caring teachers that know students as persons and to whom they can talk about personal issues. Good teaching practices like inspiration, not being talked down to, and just being there were important factors in their motivation to succeed (Antrop-Gonzlez et al., 2005; Conchas, 2001; Garret, Veliz, & Antrop-Gonzlez, 2002). Hispanic students almost unanimously identified someone caring as the most important factor in academic success (National Commission on Secondary Education for Hispanics, 1984). Role Modeling Hispanic students with a positive view of their intellectual ability and a strong sense of responsibility for their academic future were more likely to be academically successful (Alatorre
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Alva, 1991). The students affirmation of Puerto Rican identity is another tool for their success because it is a motivation to prove that they are as good as their peers and have the potential to be good students. Latino students, who have a solid and positive valuation of their culture and language, have advantages that are evident in their academic performance (Zarate, Bhimji, & Reese, 2005). Studies have shown that a positive cultural/self identity was fostered by exposing low SES Hispanic adolescents to high achieving Hispanic symbolic role models (Costantino and Malgady, 1996; Malgady & Costantino, 2003). The standard explanation for the failure of Puerto Rican students in U.S. schools has been embedded in the students themselves: their culture, poverty, Limited English Proficiency (LEP) and poor parenting, among others. However, schools low expectations of these students, the poor preparation of their teachers, the victimization and racism they have faced, and the extremely limited resources of the schools themselves have rarely been mentioned as contributing to the lack of success of Puerto Rican students (Nieto, 1998). School variables associated with the dropout rates of Chicano/Latino students have been attributed to problems in attendance (absenteeism), barriers in participation on school activities, lack of alternative educational programs, misguided expectations of teachers and staff, and perceptions of racism (Davison Avils, Guerrero, Barajas Howarth, & Thomas, 1999). Problem Given recent figures on Hispanic dropout and school disinterest starting in middle school, this paper considered whether academic negative outcomes may be related to motivational deficits. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess strengths as well as weaknesses in the variable of Achievement Motivation in cross sectional samples of Hispanic/Latino students in
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grades 3-12. The question was whether Hispanic students would show adaptive functioning in Achievement Motivation as measured by the TEMAS and how this variable developed throughout the school years. Specifically, it was hypothesized that Achievement Motivation would exhibit a critical developmental period in middle school that is concomitant with a process of school disengagement which leads later on to dropout. In order to evaluate this hypothesis, grade differences in Achievement Motivation were tested, and the Achievement Motivation scale was examined with respect to educational criteria, and school achievement and performance measures. Method Design The present paper presents secondary analyses from three studies conducted by the authors at different times, including Hispanic/Latino students. Study I was conducted with 3-6 grade Hispanic students (n = 82) in New York Public Schools. Study II with 6-8 grade Puerto Rican students (n = 74). Study III included Puerto Rican cases from an ongoing TEMAS Adolescent Project; subsequently these cases were combined with the subgroups of only Puerto Rican students, available from Study I, and Study II, thus making a total data set of 171 Puerto Rican students. Finally, results from these studies were statistically compared with previous results of TEMAS research. Participants Study I included 82 Hispanic students in 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grade (39 males, 43 females). Students average age was 10.21 (SD = 1.24; age range 8-13). Students were recruited from two elementary public schools. One was located in Community School District 15 in Sunset Park,
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Brooklyn, New York City; and the other was in the Rochester City School District, at Rochester, upstate New York. Both schools have a predominantly working class Hispanic pupil population. The majority of the students were mostly of low SES when examined by the occupational criteria of the Hollingshead scale (Hollingshead, 1957). Study II involved 74 Hispanic/Puerto Rican students in 6th, 7th and 8th grade (30 males, 44 females). Students average age was 12.7 (SD = 1.2; age range 11-15). Students self identified as Puerto Rican were recruited from regular education classrooms from New York City public schools located at District I in Manhattan. Students from this school district are mostly of low SES (socioeconomic status) as determined by federal parameters such as eligibility for school lunch and participation in school programs. Study III was constituted from a data base of 171 Puerto Rican students from 3rd to12th grade (age range 8-18; 74 males, 97 females). Frequency distribution of students by grades can be seen in Table 1. As was mentioned before, children 3-8 grade were from a working class background, and the cases of Puerto Rican adolescents (n = 42) were from low to middle class. Measures TEMAS. The TEMAS Achievement Motivation scale refers to the desire to attain a goal or to succeed in an endeavor that is measured by some standard of excellence. Achievement Motivation could refer to personal accomplishment or to competition with others in areas such as sports and games, school and learning, vocation and avocation. Achievement Motivation is scored across a 4-point range from 1 (highly maladaptive) to 4 (highly adaptive). Then, these means are translated to T-scores with tables organized by ethnicity and age (where M = 50, SD=
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10). The TEMAS Achievement Motivation scale scores are based on the seven pictures depicting this construct. The multicultural projective/narrative test TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) is one of the few psychological instruments available for Hispanic children (Costantino, 1987; Costantino et al., 1988; Costantino et al., 2007). The TEMAS test has been standardized with Hispanic/Latino children in New York City, and validated with Puerto Rican children in Puerto Rico (Costantino, Malgady, Casullo & Castillo, 1991). The TEMAS test consists of chromatically attractive, ethnically relevant pictures depicting conflict situations at home, school and community. These situations pull themes expressing varying degrees of psychological distress, ranging from psychopathology to highly adaptive functioning. TEMAS stories are evaluated in terms of the storytellers ability to adaptively manage and structure psychological conflicts. School functioning. In Study I Educational criteria was defined by asking teachers in each school to evaluate the students school achievement on a 3-point scale: below-average, average, and above-average. For statistical purposes Educational Criteria was later on converted to a 2point scale: below average and average/above-average. This variable showed that 59 students scored in the below average range, and 23 students scored in the average/above-average range. Thus, scores were underrepresented at the upper range. In Study II Students standardized scores for reading and math achievement tests were collected from the school records, and students performance ratings reported by the teachers with permission of the parents and students. School achievement was measured by standardized reading (Degree of Reading Power) and math (California Achievement Test) tests. These tests are administered by the school district annually in order to assess the progress of the students
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relative to those in other city schools and nation-wide. These scores were expressed in percentiles. The performance measure was a global rating that the teachers reported about the childs school functioning. Teachers reported students performance on a 3-point scale: 1 = unsatisfactory; 2 = needs improvement; 3 = satisfactory. This scale follows the rating pattern used for the report cards. Procedures The language used for the test administration was English, Spanish or both according to the students language dominance. All children were administered the instruments in their school setting. In Study I, students were administered the TEMAS, and the educational criteria was collected from the teachers. Study II, besides the TEMAS scale scores, considered students reading and math achievement test scores and performance ratings. Study III included only the TEMAS Achievement Motivation scores. Results are expressed in T-scores (M = 50; SD = 10) for Studies I and II, and in means for Study III since the TEMAS is still lacking in norms for the adolescent population. Results Study I As a group, Hispanic/Latino students from 3rd to 6th grade scored in the average range of functioning in the Achievement Motivation scale (M = 54.94; SD = 13.84), which is indicative of adaptive coping skills in this area. Students showed stable Achievement Motivation throughout third to sixth grade and no significant grade differences were found.
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When the total group of students were divided as English dominant (n = 41) and Spanish dominant (n = 41), according to their language used in the test, they showed similar levels of functioning on the TEMAS Achievement Motivation scale. Achievement Motivation scores of English dominant and Spanish dominant students were in the average range, with means of 54.12 (SD = 13.45), and 55.80 (SD = 14.33), respectively. T-tests were conducted for the total sample divided by Educational criteria (below-average and average/above-average) on Achievement Motivation but no significant differences were found. Hispanic bilingual students with average/above-average Educational Criteria did not exhibit average to above-average Achievement Motivation. Likewise, students with below-average Educational Criteria did not exhibit below-average Achievement Motivation. T-tests were conducted for the English dominant and Spanish dominant students wherein each group was divided according to the two levels of Educational Criteria (below-average and average/above-average). The question was whether Educational Criteria made a significant difference for Achievement Motivation depending on the predominant language, but again no significant differences were found for the independent samples. Study II For the total group of Puerto Rican students, Achievement Motivation was below average (M = 39.11; SD = 13.08), indicating a mildly maladaptive development of this theme. However, when stratified by grade, for sixth graders, Achievement Motivation: M = 44.56; SD = 13.62, Tscores were close to the mean when compared to the Puerto Rican normative group. Seventh graders showed below-average skills in Achievement Motivation: M = 35.48; SD = 11.56. Eighth graders also showed below-average skills in Achievement Motivation: M = 37.36; SD = 12.71. A univariate test on Achievement Motivation showed significant grade differences among students
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(F (2, 68) = 3.53, p < .04). Post hoc Duncan comparisons with a significance level of .05 showed that the Achievement Motivation of students in grade six was significantly higher than the Achievement Motivation of students in grade seven. Sixth graders also earned higher achievement scores in reading and math than the seventh or eighth graders. One-way ANOVA of reading by grade yielded a between groups effect (F (2, 64) = 7.21, p < .002). Post hoc Duncan test with a significance level of .05 indicated significant differences in reading between grades six (M = 55.04; SD = 29.40) and seven (M = 28.05; SD = 24.06) and between grades six and eight (M = 35.00; SD = 20.02). One-way ANOVA of math by grade yielded a between group effect F (2, 69) = 6.23, p < .003. Post hoc Duncan test with a significance level of .05 indicated significant differences for the math test scores between grades six (M = 53.88; SD = 31.54) and seven (M = 28.28; SD = 26.96), and grades six and eight (M = 34.14; SD = 19.68), but not between grades seven and eight. Significant grade differences were found in reported school performance (F (2, 69) = 3.34, p < .04). Post hoc Duncan test with a significance level of .05 showed significant differences between grades six (M = 2.78; SD = 0.42) and seven (M = 2.26; SD = 0.86), but no differences between six and eight (M = 2.41; SD = 0.80) or seven and eight. Correlation coefficients were computed to test the direction and strength of the relationship between Achievement Motivation and school achievement and performance scores by grade. Achievement Motivation of sixth graders correlated moderately with reading (r = .53, p < .01) and math achievement (r = .43, p < .03). Achievement Motivation of seventh graders correlated with school performance (r = .46, p < .02). Achievement Motivation of eighth graders correlated with math achievement (r = .47, p < .02) and school performance (r = .51, p < .01).
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Study III The total group of Puerto Rican students (grades 3-12) obtained an Achievement Motivation mean score of 2.89 (SD = .48), revealing partially maladaptive functioning. Achievement Motivation scores were grouped by grade but given the small numbers in some of the cells, grades 9-10 and 11-12 were clustered together (see Table 1). As can be seen in Table 1 from grades 3-6, the mean scores of Achievement Motivation were within the range of partially adaptive functioning. However, from 7th to12th grades, the mean scores of Achievement Motivation were in the range of moderately maladaptive functioning. In order to explore significant grade differences in Achievement Motivation, an ANOVA was performed. Significant grade differences in Achievement Motivation were found, F (7, 163) = 6.41, p < .001. A Post hoc comparison using the Scheff method showed significant differences between 6th and 7th grade (p < .01), 6th and 8th grade (p < .05), and 6th and 11th grade (p < .05). No significant differences were found among grades three to six, or seven to twelve. Comparisons When the Puerto Rican students in Study I were scored for Achievement Motivation (M = 55.98; SD = 12.14), and then compared with the Puerto Rican sample in Study II (M = 39.11; SD = 13.08), the former results are significantly higher than the latter (t (131) = 7.70) at a two-tailed, .05 significance level. Results of this paper can also be compared to other TEMAS studies performed with Puerto Rican children in the United States and other countries (e.g. Bernal, 1991; Costantino et al., 1991; Malgady, Costantino & Rogler, 1984; Walton et al, 1997). The Achievement Motivation scale scores of those two referred studies were compared by t-tests to the findings of 90
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Study II. One study (Costantino et al., 1991) had included New York City Puerto Rican students in public schools, grades 1-6. For these students Achievement Motivation (reported in means) scored in the partially adaptive range of functioning (M = 3.03; SD = 0.25) and showed a significantly higher mean when compared to the 6-8 graders in Study II (M = 2.78; SD = 0.46), at a two-tailed significance level of .05 (t (239) = 4.42). Similar findings are evident in the other TEMAS study (Malgady et al., 1984), with New York City Puerto Rican students in public schools, grades K-6. Again, these students Achievement Motivation scored in the partially adaptive range of functioning (M = 3.02; SD = 0.28) and also showed a significantly higher mean when compared to the 6-8 graders in Study II, at a two-tailed significance level of .05 (t (145) = 3.85). Thus, suggesting that older students may be at a relatively higher developmental risk for maladjustment regarding Achievement Motivation when compared to younger children. Discussion Results of the TEMAS test showed that the TEMAS instrument assesses strengths and weaknesses in the Achievement Motivation function of Hispanic/Latino children; thus identifying in a non-biased manner their resilient skills as well as psychological and school dysfunctions. The results for the three samples indicate that the TEMAS test is a culturally sensitive and competent instrument for assessing Hispanic students and suggest that a critical period emerges after the sixth grade, showing declining motivational and academic functioning. In Study I Hispanic students exhibited resilient skills in the area of Achievement Motivation throughout 3rd to 6th grades and no significant grade differences were found. In fact, at that point educational indicators do not make a difference in the Achievement Motivation levels. However, some changes are registered in Study II: there were grade specific effects during early adolescence and to some extent; Achievement Motivation as measured by the 91
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TEMAS was significantly associated to school functioning. In Study III students showed a stable pattern of results which dipped significantly in higher grades. From seventh grade on, again grade scores are consistently at the same level. However, it should be noted that the distribution of 9th to10th graders showed limited variability which could have affected the lack of significant results in this grade group. Thus, suggesting that older students may be at a relative higher developmental risk for maladjustment regarding Achievement Motivation when compared to younger children. The students reading and math achievement test scores decrease in middle school is consistent with reports stating that academic delays increase with age and that this gap is quite significant by middle school (Fernndez, 1988; Reyes, 1992; Quiroz, 2001). The decline in academic achievement or underachievement is critical since school dropout has been related to low reading and math skills (Office of Research, Evaluation and Assessment, 1994). The results of this exploratory study confirm the findings of previous studies where the TEMAS multicultural instrument showed etic validity when compared with the TAT and the Roberts Apperception Test in assessing the personality functioning of minority children (e.g., Bernal, 1991; Costantino & Malgady, 1983). Since narrative/projective techniques have shown to be valid instruments in assessing phenotypic functions of personality such as Achievement Motivation, it is suggested that future TEMAS research further explore the relationship between this important construct and criteria such as school achievement and adaptive behavior.
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References Alatorre Alva, S. (1991). Academic invulnerability among Mexican-American students: The importance of protective resources and appraisals. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 13, 18-34. Antrop-Gonzlez, R., Vlez, W., & Garrett, T. (2005). Dnde estn los estudiantes puertorriqueos exitosos? [Where are the academically successful Puerto Rican students?] Success factors of high achieving Puerto Rican high school students. Journal of Latinos and Education, 4(2), 77-94. APA Presidential Task Force on Evidence-Based Practice (2006). Evidence-based Practice in Psychology, American Psychologist, 61 (4), 271-285. Aspira of New York (1983). Racial and ethnic high school dropout rates in New York City: A summary report. New York: Author. Bernal, I. (1991). The relationship between levels of acculturation, the Roberts Apperception Test for Children and the TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story).Unpublished doctoral dissertation, California School of Professional Psychology, Los Angeles. Bernal, G., & Scharrn-Del-Ro, M. (2003). Are empirically supported treatments valid for ethnic minorities? Toward an alternative approach for treatment research. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 7 (4), 328-342.Conchas, G. (2001). Structuring failure and success: Understanding the variability in Latino school engagement. Harvard Educational Review, 71 (3), 475-504.
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Costantino, G. (1987). TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) stimulus cards. Minority Version. Los Angeles: Western Psychological Services. Costantino, G., Dana, R. H., & Malgady, R. (2007). TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) assessment in multicultural societies. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Costantino, G., & Malgady, R. (1983). Verbal fluency of Hispanic, Black, and White children on TAT and TEMAS. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 5, 199-206. Costantino, G., & Malgady, R.G. (1996). Culturally sensitive treatment: Cuento and Hero/Heroine Modeling Therapies for Hispanic children and adolescents. In P. Jensen & E. Hibbs (Eds.), 639-697. Psychosocial treatment research of child and adolescent disorders. Empirically Based Strategies for Clinical Practice. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association. Costantino, G., Malgady, R., Casullo, M. M., & Castillo, A. (1991). Cross-cultural standardization of TEMAS in three Hispanic subcultures. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 13, 48-62. Costantino, G., Malgady, R., & Rogler, L. (1988). TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) manual. Los ngeles: Western Psychological Services. Costantino, G., Vzquez, C., & Prez, M. (2010). Cross Cultural School Psychology: An Overview and Examples of Multicultural Treatment and Assessment Modalities in C.S. Clauss-Ehlers (Ed.). Encyclopedia of cross-cultural school psychology. New York, NY: Springer
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Dana, R. H. (2007). Culturally competent school assessment: Performance measures of personality. Psychology in the Schools, 44, 229-242. Davison Avils, R., Guerrero, M., Barajas Howarth, H., & Thomas, G. (1999). Perceptions of Chicano/Latino students who have dropped out of school. Journal of Counseling and Development, 77 (4), 465-473. De Jess, A., & Vsquez. (2005, Fall). Exploring the education profile and pipeline for Latinos in New York State. Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueos: Hunter College, CUNY, Policy Brief, 2 (2). Department of City Planning. New York City (1994). Puerto Rican New Yorkers. Fernndez, R. (1988). Achievement testing, Science vs. ideology, Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 10, 179-198. Foster, S., Rollefson, M, Doksum, T., Noonan, D., Robinson, G. (2005). School Mental Health Services in the United States, 20022003. DHHS Pub. No. (SMA) 05-4068. Rockville, MD: Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Fry, R. (2005a). The high schools Hispanics attend, size and other key characteristics. Pew Hispanic Center. Retrieved from: http://pewhispanic.org Fry, R. (2005b). The higher dropout rates of foreign born teens the role of schooling abroad. Pew Hispanic Center. Retrieved from: http:pewhispanic.org/reports
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Garret, T., Vlez, W., & Antrop-Gonzlez, R. (2002). The High academic achievement and resiliency of Puerto Rican students in a Milwaukee Public High school. Retrieved from http://www.uwn.edu/Dept/Grad_Sch/McNair/2002/garret.html Hine, C.Y. (1992). The home environment of gifted Puerto Rican children: Family factors which support high achievement. Third National Research Symposium on Limited English Proficient Student Issues: Focus on Middle and High School Issues. Retrieved from http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/pubs/symposia/third/hine.htm Hollingshead, A. (1957). Two factor index of social position. New Haven, CT: Yale University. Malgady, R. & Costantino, G. (1998). Symptom severity in bilingual Hispanics as a function of clinician ethnicity and language of interview. Psychological Assessment, 10(2), 120-127. Malgady, R., Costantino, G., & Rogler, L. (1984). Development of a Thematic Apperception Test (TEMAS) for urban Hispanic children. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 52, 986-996. Malgady, R.G. & Costantino, G. (2003). Cuento Therapy for Drug Abuse. In A. Kazdin & M. Weisz (Eds.), pp 225-235. Evidence Based Psychotherapy for Children. New York City: Guilford Publications, Inc. Miranda, J., Bernal, G., Lau, A., Kohn, L., Hwang, W. C., & LaFromboise, T. (2005). State of the science on psychological interventions for ethnic minorities. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 1, 113-142.
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National Commission on Secondary Education for Hispanics. (1984). Make something happen: Hispanics and urban school reform. Washington, DC: Hispanics Policy Development Project. New York City Department of Education Statistical Summaries (2008). Retrieved from http://www.nycenet.edu/offices/stats/default.htm. Nieto, S. (1998). Fact and fiction: Stories of Puerto Ricans in U.S. schools. Harvard Educational Review, 68 (2), 133-163. Nieto, S. (2000). Puerto Rican students in U.S. schools. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Office of Research, Evaluation and Assessment. (1994). District I profile and performance in relation to minimum standards. New York City Public Schools. Padilla, A. M. (1992). Reflections on testing emerging trends and new possibilities. In K. F. Geisinger (Ed.), The Psychological Testing of Hispanics (pp. 271-284). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Quiroz, P. A. (2001). The silencing of Latino student voice: Puerto Rican and Mexican narratives in eighth grade and high school. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 32 (3), 326-349. Report on the White House Strategy Session on Improving Hispanic Student Achievement, (2000). Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://www.ed.gov/pubs/hispanicindicators/index.html
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Reyes, L. (1992). Toward a vision for the education of Latino students. Community voices, student voices. Interim report of the Latino Commission on Educational Reform. New York City Board of Education. Rogler, L., Malgady, R., & Rodrguez, O. (1989). Hispanics and mental health: A framework for research. Malabar, Florida: Krieger Publishing. United States Census Bureau (2001). The Hispanic Population. Census 2000 Brief. U.S. Department of Commerce. Economics and Statistics Administration. Walton, J.R., Nuttall, R.L., & Vzquez-Nuttall, E. (1997). The impact of war on the mental health of children: A Salvadoran study. Child Abuse & Neglect, 21, 737-749. Zarate, M.E. Bhimji, F., & Reese, L. (2005). Ethnic Identity and Academic achievement among Latino/a adolescents. Journal of Latinos and Education, 4 (2), 95-114.
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Table 1 Achievement Motivation: Means, SD and ns for Puerto Rican students in Grades 3 to 12 in Study III Grades 3 4 5 Means 3.11 3.14 3.08 SD 0.08 0.11 0.44 N 15 15 13
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6 7 8 9-10 11-12 3.11 2.67 2.70 2.97 2.55 0.23 0.19 0.17 0.22 0.10 41 39 28 7 13
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Acknowledgments: special thanks for the assistance of Aidyl Lozada and Lili M. Sardias from Carlos Albizu University
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Factorial components of the multicultural TEMAS test for Hispanic children
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Elsa B. Cardalda Ponce School of Medicine and Health Sciences Interamerican University of Puerto Rico
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Abstract This study conducted an exploratory factor analysis of the multicultural projective/narrative TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) test to examine what group of factors could be found in a sample of Hispanic/Latino students, and if these factors followed the standard design of the test, with respect to the scales in three areas of functioning: personality, affective and cognitive. Factor analysis of the TEMAS scale scores were based on Hispanic children living both in Puerto Rico and in New York City. Participant Hispanic students attended public elementary schools in lowincome communities. Two different factor analyses with Varimax rotation were performed. The first analysis revealed the existence of one principal component, named Personality Scales, which explained 31.94% of the variance. The second factor analysis showed the existence of two principal components (i.e. Cognitive and Affective Scales) that explained 72.6% of the variance. The factor analysis results confirmed the current scale structure of the TEMAS test. Key words: TEMAS test, Hispanic children, Factor analysis Resumen Este estudio realiz un anlisis factorial exploratorio de la prueba proyectiva/narrativa culturalmente sensitiva TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) para examinar la presencia de factores de acuerdo al diseo estndar de la prueba (agrupados en tres reas de funcionamiento: personalidad, afectivo y cognitivo). El anlisis factorial de las puntuaciones de la prueba TEMAS se baso en una muestra de nios hispanos que residan en Puerto Rico y en Nueva York. Los estudiantes hispanos que participaron en el estudio asistan a escuelas elementales en comunidades de bajo nivel socio-econmico. Se realizaron dos anlisis factoriales con rotacin Varimax diferentes. El primer anlisis revel la existencia de un componente principal, llamado Escalas de Personalidad, el cual explica el 31.94% de la varianza. El segundo anlisis factorial 101
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revel la existencia de dos componentes principales (Escalas Cognitivas y Afectivas) que explicaron el 72.6% de la varianza. Los resultados del anlisis factorial confirmaron la
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estructura original y/o diseo estndar de la prueba TEMAS. Palabras claves: prueba TEMAS, Nios hispanos, Anlisis de factores
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Development of TEMAS Given the dearth of psychological literature on personality assessment of culturally and linguistically diverse youngsters (Dana, 2000, 2007) and in light of the pressing needs for a narrative technique oriented toward ethnic cultures and to create culture-specific norms for projective/narrative tests (Dana, 1996, 2007 Exner & Weiner, 1994), the TEMAS (Tell-Me-AStory) test was developed with culturally relevant stimuli. The TEMAS consists of parallel minority and nonminority pictures (Costantino, 1978, 1987) embodying the following features; structured stimuli and diminished ambiguity to pull for specific personality functions; chromatically attractive, ethnically relevant and contemporary stimuli to elicit diagnostically meaningful stories; representation of both negative and positive intra personal functions in the form of conflicts or dilemmas that require a solution; and objective scoring of both thematic structure and content. The rationale for these and other departures from traditional projective techniques (e.g. reduced ambiguity, color) is based on empirical research (Costantino, Dana & Malgady, 2007). TEMAS has the same meaning in several languages, in English, TEMAS is an acronym for Tell Me A Story; in Spanish, it means themes, in Italian, TEMA, means theme. This felicitous cross-linguistic combination of names represents the most appropriate title for a multicultural test (Costantino, 1987; Costantino, Malgady & Rogler, 1988; Ritzler, 1993). The TEMAS represents a number of departures and improvements relative to previous projective/narrative tests. First, the test was specifically developed for use with children and adolescents (Ritzler, 1993). Second, the test comprises two parallel sets of stimulus cards, one set for minorities and the other for nonminorities, thus making it multicultural in nature. Third, the test abandons the construct of pictorial ambiguity common to the TAT and Rorschach to pull for specific conflicts and utilizes
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structured stimuli with pictorial problem solving (Costantino, Flanagan & Malgady, 2001; Flanagan et. al., 2004; Flanagan & Di Giuseppe, 1999). Fourth, the test has normative data for Black, Puerto Rican, other Hispanic, and White children; thus increasing multicultural validity and diminishing test bias against minorities (Dana, 1993, 1996; Ritzler, 1996). Fifth, the stimulus cards are in color, which attracts and maintains childrens interest (Costantino, 1978, 1987; Costantino et al., 1988) and facilitates narratives of emotional states (Costantino et al., 2001; Lubin, 1955; Murstein, 1961; Exner, 1993; Thompson & Bachrach, 1951). TEMAS Pictures The TEMAS pictures were created by a young, upcoming artist, Phil Jacobs, who worked closely with the test author (Costantino, 1978; 1987) in an attempt to depict a variety of psychosocial situations. The stimuli embody a wide variety of problematic life situations and experiences in inner city environments, such as familial scenes within the home, solitary dreamlike and fantasy states, street scenes involving peers and adults, sports activities, and situations occurring in school settings. The antithetical nature of the situations portrayed in the pictures enables positive or negative feelings to be projected in stories and manifested as adaptive or maladaptive resolutions of the underlying motivation. These situations pull themes expressive of varying degrees of psychopathology, ranging from severe pathology (e.g., morbidity, suicidal ideation, depression, impulsivity, isolation, delusion) to highly adaptive functioning. TEMAS pictures were designed in full colors in order to motivate childrens attention (Costantino, 1987). Pictures depict Hispanic characters interacting in familiar urban environments to promote greater identification with projective stimuli and thereby enhance verbal fluency and self disclosure of personality dynamics (Malgady, Costantino & Rogler, 1984, p. 994) 104
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Personality Functions and Pictures- Inter-Judge Reliability. The nine personality functions were designed and psychometrically tested to pull for a minimum of two to a maximum of four personality functions; however pictures Nos. 10B (Boy) & G (Girl) and 20 pull for only one personality function. Specific functions for each card are denoted by a triangle in the scoring boxes of the Personality Functions as shown in the Record Booklet. Pull(s) for each picture was empirically assessed. In a psychometric study, Costantino, Malgady and Rogler (1988) assessed the degree of inter-judge agreement about picture pulls in a sample of 14 clinical and school, culturally diverse psychologists. The percentage of agreement among the 14 clinicians ranged from 100% on card 1B&G for Interpersonal Relations to 71% on card 15 for Achievement Motivation. The TEMAS was designed for use with minority and non-minority children and adolescents aged 5 to 18; it has two parallel versions: minority for Blacks and Hispanics/Latinos, and non-minority for Whites. A third Asian-American version was preliminarily validated in New York and Taiwan (Costantino et al., 2007; Yang, Kuo, & Costantino, 2003). Each version is comprised of a short form of nine cards, which can be completed within 40-50 minutes and the long form of 23 cards, which can be completed within 100-120 minutes. The short form is usually administered in clinical practice, which can be augmented by two or three additional cards pulling for the specific symptoms presented by a given child (e.g. aggression, anxiety, sexual identification conflicts). Theoretical Framework The theoretical formulation of TEMAS is largely multi model: social-cognitive and narrative, which posits that personality development occurs within a socio-cultural system where
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individuals internalize the cultural values and beliefs of family and society (Bandura, 1977, 1986; McAdams, 1994; Piaget & Inhelder, 1971; Sullivan, 1953). Personality functions are learned initially through modeling (Bandura, 1977) and are then developed through verbal/narrative and imaginal processes (McAdams & Pals, 2006; Paivio, 1971; Piaget & Inhelder, 1971; Singer & Pope, 1978). When a narrative test pictorial stimuli are similar to the situations in which the personality functions were originally learned, these functions are attributed to the characters and situations in the cards and narrated as personal life events and life stories (Auld, 1952; Bandura, 1986; Bruner, 1986; Mancuso & Sarbin, 1983; Sarbin, 1986; Teglasi, 2001). More specifically, Sarbin (1986) and Mancuso and Sarbin (1983) proposed the narrative mode as a root metaphor in psychology, which allows psychologists to understand individuals through their narratives or life histories. Narrative theory suggests that there is an interrelationship between cultural narrative and personal narrative because culture influences the individual and in turn the individual narrative reflects the culture in which they are told (Kirkman, 2002). In addition, there is a mutual relationship between individual and cultural narrative and the socio cognitive psychology of human development such as Banduras (1986), Piaget and Inhelder (1971), and Singer and Pope (1978) because those social learning theorists must explain the development of the self through different stages of life span through the narrative identity of the individual. Narrative identity is developed within the matrix of social and cultural milieu (Bruner, 1990) and through telling about our self is that we develop a sense of the self (Mancuso & Sarbin, 1983). The effectiveness of a culturally competent multicultural narrative technique in personality assessment such as the TEMAS provides a perfect fit with the reformulation of personality as narrative identity by McAdams and Pals (2006) and with Howards (1991) view
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of psychotherapy as a technique in story repair (Costantino, Malgady & Rogler, 1996). Hence, TEMAS narrative test, may correspond to a valid multicultural assessment in understanding why life stories go wrong among culturally diverse individuals; thus linking culturally appropriate assessment to treatment. TEMAS Research As a multicultural instrument, the TEMAS has the support of extensive empirical studies in the U.S. comparing minority and non-minority versions of the TEMAS with samples of Hispanic, White and Black backgrounds (Costantino, Malgady, & Vzquez, 1981; Costantino & Malgady, 1983; Costantino, Malgady, Coln-Malgady & Bailey, 1992; Costantino, Malgady, Rogler & Tsui, 1988; Flanagan, 1999; Krinsky, 1999; Malgady, Costantino, & Rogler, 1984). Cross cultural studies have been performed with Puerto Rican, Argentinian, Mexican-American, Salvadorean, Peruvian, Chinese, and Italian children (Bernal, 1991; Cardalda, Costantino, OrtizVargas, Len-Velzquez, & Jimnez-Surez, 2007; Cornabuci, 2000; Costantino, Malgady & Faiola, 1997; Costantino, & Malgady, 2000; Costantino, Malgady, Casullo, & Castillo, 1991; Dupertuis , Silva Arancibia, Pais, Fernndez, Rodino, 2004; Fantini, Aschieri, Bevilacqua, Augello, 2007; Milln-Arzuaga, 1990; Sardi, Summo, Cornabuci, & Sulfaro, 2001; Sulfaro, 2000; Summo, 2000; Yang et al., 2003; Walton, Nuttall, & Vzquez-Nuttall, 1997). Furthermore, other studies have established the validity (Costantino et al., 1988; Costantino et al., 1992; Costantino, Malgady, Rogler, & Tsui, 1988) and clinical utility of the TEMAS test. (Cardalda, Costantino, Sayers, Machado, & Guzman, 2002; Malgady, Costantino, & Rogler, 1984). TEMAS Factorial Study
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Although several validity studies have been conducted with Hispanic children, this is the first study that analyzes the factor components of the test with these samples. The objective of this study was to conduct an exploratory factor analysis of the TEMAS test and examine if these factors follow the standard design of the test in three groups of scales: personality, cognitive and affective functions. In order to enrich the scope of the study, two samples of Hispanic students attending public elementary schools in high risk communities both in Puerto Rico and in New York City were recruited. This study used the short version set of the TEMAS consisting of nine chromatically attractive pictures about the self and social situations at home, school and community. For this research, the TEMAS written/group format was used (vs. the standard oral/individual format). Thus, it also represents an effort to further analyze the efficacy of the newly devised TEMAS written/group format (Cardalda, Figueroa, Hernndez, Rodrguez, Martnez, Costantino, Surez, & Len, 2008). Method Participants The Hispanic sample from Puerto Rico targeted several schools serving poor communities in the metropolitan San Juan area using a list of public schools from the local Department of Education. Permission was obtained from the Central Board of the Department of Education and children from four schools were invited to participate in the study. Schools were sampled sequentially, that is, one at a time to facilitate the logistics of the study and minimize disruptions to the schools. The sample included 110 children (45 boys [41%] and 65 girls [59%], ages 9 to 11 (M = 10.34, SD = 1.41).
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In New York, recruitment was limited to public schools where the Lutheran Medical Center Sunset Park Mental Health Center operated a school-based Mental Health Program. Participants included 105 children (45 boys [43%] and 60 girls [57%], ages 9 to 11 years (M = 10.26, SD = 0.46), from two Brooklyn-based public schools located in a low socio-economic status community. Instrument TEMAS pictures depict characters interacting in settings, such as, at school, neighborhood, and home while portraying a conflict (e.g., complying with parental request vs. playing with peers; helping an elderly person carry groceries vs. harassing an elderly person). Examinees are motivated to develop a narrative about the psychological conflict represented in the pictures. The pictures are administered according to standardized instructions and structured inquiries. The TEMAS instrument has a well-researched and standardized scoring system that includes norms for Puerto Rican children (ages 5-13), both in Puerto Rico and New York, in addition to other normative groups of Other Hispanics, Blacks and Whites.. The TEMAS scoring system is comprised of 9 personality functions, 18 cognitive functions, and 7 affective functions as shown in Table 1 Both the content (what is told) and the structure (how it is told) of the stories are scored. Procedures Children were invited to participate through their teachers. Written informed consent was obtained from the childrens parents and informed assent from the children. Confidentiality was assured by identifying all participants with a code number. The permits obtained precluded the gathering of personal demographic information or the identification of children in any manner.
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Only the Project Director had access to the master list linking the students names to code numbers. All scoring was completely blind. Testing was conducted by graduate clinical psychology students supervised by the Project Director and administered in the community school classrooms or library during regular hours. In this study, the TEMAS was administered in a group format using the nine pictures of the short version for minority children. For this purpose, a pre-structured writing form was designed for each TEMAS picture. The TEMAS group format instructions included the standard questions and inquiries and required children to write stories in capital letters. The TEMAS group format requires that the child write a story about a picture projected onto a screen. Prestructured writing forms were designed for the nine pictures projected. TEMAS pictures were presented in a digital form (CD) with saved images, using a laptop and an in-focus projector. In Puerto Rico the TEMAS test was administered in Spanish and the children wrote the stories in Spanish, whereas in New York City, children responded in either English or Spanish, depending on their preference. The administration of the TEMAS group test was conducted separately for boys and girls as to present gender relevant pictures. A maximum of 10 minutes per picture were given for writing each story. In Puerto Rico TEMAS pictures were not administered in a numerical order so as to avoid a serial effect for fatigue in the production of stories; order was randomized for the pictures and four sets of scrambled stimuli were presented in identical order to participating boys and girls. The examiner was available to provide adequate supervision to the children if questions arose. In the group format, children influenced each other in the stories, spontaneously asking questions about the projected pictures.
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In New York, the TEMAS group testing was administered in a slightly different manner because of local practices. Children received a reward for their participation in the form of school supplies. The TEMAS test was administered in a numerical order instead of randomly. The examiner read the instructions to the children in both English and Spanish; children were asked their language preference for writing the stories and were given the corresponding form [87 children (80.6%) responded in English and 21 children (19.4%) responded in Spanish]. Stories were scored according to the TEMAS standard scoring system. Clinical research practicum students transcribed all the narratives of the children. Inter-rater consistency was obtained through a consensus method for scoring the TEMAS protocols, using the supervisory sessions for presenting questions about the cases. Results Two factor analyses with an orthogonal Varimax rotation were performed to explore the factorial structure of the TEMAS test. These analyses were performed separately since the scoring system for the personality scales is not the same as the cognitive and affective scales. First factor analysis. A principal component analysis demonstrated that all items could be grouped in one factor named Personality Scales. This factor by itself could explain 32% of the variance. Moreover, a Varimax rotation revealed that this principal component could be subdivided in three sub-factors (i.e. Self Perceptions, Interpersonal Perceptions, Emotional Perceptions), with Eigen values over 1, that can explain 55.4% of the variance (see Table 2).
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Second factor analysis. A principal component analysis demonstrated that all items could be grouped into two main components: Cognitive and Affective Scales. These two components combined could explain 72.6% of the variance (30.2% and 42.4% respectively). Moreover, the Cognitive Scales factor can be subdivided in three sub factors (Transformations, Omissions, and Narrative Richness), with Eigen values over 1, which can explain 40% of the variance (see Table 3). Table 4 presents the items that form the Affective Scales factor. Discussion The factor analysis results are consistent with the current scale structure of the TEMAS test. Results indicated that the components found were grouped similarly to the scales established by the standard TEMAS test, i.e., personality functions, cognitive functions and affective functions. However, in the standard TEMAS, the scale of Relationships is located as a cognitive function but in this factor analysis it was grouped as an affective function. A possible explanation for this can be that for Hispanic children relationships are defined by affects instead of cognitions. This finding demonstrates the flexibility of the test and provides a cultural context to evaluate these functions. Since this is a preliminary result, further confirmatory factor analyses are needed to examine this finding. In sum, these results show that for Hispanic samples in Puerto Rico and in New York, the factors are grouped similarly to the standard scale structure of the TEMAS test. Therefore, this work contributes to examine the validity of this test and to the development of appropriate multicultural instruments that are essential for unbiased assessment of ethnic minority groups. Several studies have confirmed the validity of the TEMAS test for Hispanic populations. When comparing the TEMAS and the TAT tests with respect to verbal fluency, Hispanic
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children and adolescents were found to tell substantially longer stories with the TEMAS pictures than with stimuli that had less cultural emphasis such as TAT cards (Costantino et al., 1981)., Children responded significantly more often to the TEMAS in Spanish, and to the TAT significantly more often in English. These verbal fluency results were later replicated by another study (Costantino & Malgady, 1983) which showed that Hispanics and Blacks were more verbally fluent on TEMAS than on the TAT. These findings demonstrate a tendency in Hispanic children to show enhanced verbal fluency in the TEMAS test results due to the familiar cultural symbols and environmental settings presented in the pictures (Costantino & Malgady, 1983). Various TEMAS findings suggest that low verbal fluency and incomplete stories tend to be associated with clinical status of the children. A study using the TEMAS comparing victims and perpetrators of sexual abuse found that the former showed significantly lower verbal fluency, and were more likely to make omissions about events, and omissions of characters (Costantino, Rand, Malgady, Maron, Borges-Costantino & Rodrguez, 1994). The clinical utility of the index of omissions was demonstrated in a study where AD-HD children were more likely than normal children to omit information regarding characters, events, settings and conflicts (Costantino, Coln-Malgady, Malgady & Prez, 1991). A comparison of normal and clinical samples showed that the latter significantly evidenced more unanswered inquiries, stimulus omissions and transformations, and inhibition in reaction time; however, there were no differences in total story telling time, indicating that scoring for structural indexes (omissions, transformations, story completion, inhibition) significantly discriminated between disturbed and normal examinees (Malgady et al., 1984). Studies showing significant correlations between the TEMAS and the BASC test (Flanagan, 1999), and between the TEMAS and school grades (Cardalda et al. 2007), confirm the 113
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validity of the TEMAS in assessing personality functioning, and justify its use in school-based settings. Other studies have established the clinical utility and validity of the TEMAS test in discriminating between normal and clinical groups for non minority children (Costantino et al., 1992; and for minority children (Costantino et al., 1984). There are however, some limitations of this study. Only public schools were used in these comparisons. However, children from private schools and SES contributions to mental health need to be considered in order to interpret specific patterns. A significant limitation was that in Puerto Rico and in New York, the limited permission from the Department of Education that did not permit the collection of personal demographic information or identification of the children in any way, except for the identification that the children were Hispanic, without specifying the Hispanic diversity, such as Puerto Rican, Dominican, Columbia, Peruvian and others.
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References Auld, F., Jr. (1952). Influence of social class on personality test responses. Psychological Bulletin, 49, 318-332. Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Bernal, I. (1991). The relationship between level of acculturation, the Roberts Apperception Test for children, and the TEMAS: Tell-Me-A-Story. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, California School of Professional Psychology, Los Angeles. Bruner, J. (1986). Actual Minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cardalda, E. B., Costantino, G., Ortiz-Vargas, N., Len-Velzquez, M., & Jimnez-Surez, V. (2007). Relationships between the TEMAS Test and School Achievement Measures in Puerto Rican Children. Ciencias de la Conducta, 22, (1), 79-102. Cardalda, E. B., Costantino, G., Sayers, S., Machado, W., & Guzmn, L. (2002). Use of TEMAS with patients referred for sexual abuse: Case studies of Puerto Rican children. Revista Puertorriquea de Psicologa: Asociacin de Psicologa de Puerto Rico, 13, 167-183. Cardalda, E.B. Figueroa, M., Hernndez, M., Rodrguez, N., Martnez, J., Costantino, G., Jimnez-Surez, V., & Len, M. (2008). Interpreting the TEMAS verbal fluency scale relative to language problems in Puerto Rican high risk children. In Antologa de de
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Investigaciones de los Programas Acadmicos de la Universidad Carlos Albizu, (Ed) J.R. Rodrguez Gmez, Hato Rey: Publicaciones Puertorriqueas, (pp. 269-286). Cornabuci, C. (2000). Relationship between Aggression and Interpersonal Relations in 7 and 8 years Old Italian children. Unpublished Dissertation, Universita di Roma La Sapienza, Rome, Italy. Costantino, G., (1978, November). TEMAS, a new thematic apperception test to Measure ego functions and development in urban Black and Hispanic children. Paper presented at the Second Annual Conference on Fantasy and the Imaging Chicago, IL. Costantino, G. (1987). TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) cards. Los Angeles: Western Psychological Services. Costantino, G., Coln-Malgady, G., Malgady, R, & Prez, A. (1991). Assessment of attention deficit disorder using a thematic apperception technique. Journal of Personality Assessment, 57, 87-95. Costantino, G., Dana, R. H., & Malgady, R. (2007). TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) assessment in multicultural societies. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Costantino, G., Flanagan, R., & Malgady, R. (2001). Narrative assessments: TAT, CAT, and TEMAS. In L. A. Suzuki, P.J. Meller, & J. G. Ponterotto (Eds) Handbook of Multicultural Assessment (pp.217-236). Second Edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Process.
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Costantino, G., & Malgady, R. (1983). Verbal fluency of Hispanic, Black and white children on TAT and TEMAS, a new thematic apperception test. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 5 (2), 199-206. Costantino, G., & Malgady, R. (2000). Multicultural and cross-cultural utility of TEMAS (TellMe-A-Story) Test. In R. H. Dana (Eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural/multicultural personality assessment (pp. 393-417). Hillside, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Costantino, G., Malgady R., Coln-Malgady, G., & Bailey, J. (1992). Clinical utility of the TEMAS with nonminority children. Journal of Personality Assessment, 59 (3), 433-438. Costantino, G., Malgady, R., & Faiola, T. (1997, July). Cross-cultural standardization of TEMAS with Argentinean and Peruvian children. ICP Cross-Cultural Conference, Padua, Italy. Costantino, G., Malgady, R., & Rogler, L. (1988). TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) manual. Los Angeles, CA: Western Psychological Services. Costantino, G., Malgady, R., Rogler, L. (1996). Development of TEMAS, A multicultural Thematic Apperception Test: Psychometric Properties and Clinical Utility. In G.R. Sodowsky & J. Impara (Eds.). Multicultural Assessment in Counseling and Clinical Psychology (pp. 85-136). University of Nebraska-Lincoln, NE: Buros Institute of Mental Measurements. Costantino, G., Malgady R., Rogler, L., & Tsui, E. (1988). Discriminant analysis of clinical outpatients and public school children by TEMAS: A thematic apperception test for Hispanics and Blacks. Journal of Personality Assessment, 52, 670-678.
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Costantino, G., Malgady, R., & Vzquez, C. (1981). A comparison of the Murray-TAT and a new thematic apperception test for urban children. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 3, 291-300. Costantino, G., Rand, M., Malgady, R., Maron, N., Borges-Costantino, M., et al. (1994, August). Clinical differences in sexually abused and sexually abusing African-American, Hispanic and White children. Paper presented at the 102nd Convention of the American Psychology Association, Los Angeles, CA. Dana, R. H. (1993). Multicultural assessment perspectives for professional psychology. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Dana, R.H. (1996). Culturally competent assessment practice in the United States. Journal of Personality Assessment, 66, 472-487. Dana, R. H. (2000). Multicultural assessment of child and adolescent personality and psychopathology. In A. L. Comunian & U. Gielen (Eds.), International perspectives on human development (pp. 233-258). Lengerich, Germany: Pabst Science Publishers. Dana, R. H. (2007) Culturally competent school assessment: Performance measures of personality. Psychology in the Schools, 44, 229-242. Dupertuis , D, G, Silva Arancibia, V, Pais, E., Fernandez, C., Rodino, V. (2004). Similarities and Differences in TEMAS Test Functions in Argentinean and European-American children. Universidad de Buenos Aires Argentina. Exner, J. (1993). The Rorschach: A comprehensive system. (Vol. 1, 3rd Ed.) New York: John Wiley & Sons.
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Exner, J., & Weiner, I.B. (1994). The Rorschach: A comprehensive system (Vol. 3). Assessment of children and adolescents (2nd Ed.) New York: Wiley. Fantini, F., Aschieri, F., Bevilacqua, P., Augello, C. (2007, July). TEMAS. Multicultural validity and clinical utility in Italy. Oral communication Xth European Congress of Psychology, Prague. Flanagan, R. (1999). Objective and projective personality assessment. The TEMAS and the Behavior Assessment System for Children, self report of personality. Psychological Reports, 48, 865-867. Flanagan, R., & Di Giuseppe R. (1999). Critical review of the TEMAS: A step within the development of thematic apperception instruments. Psychology in the Schools, 36 (1), 2130. Flanagan, R., Losapio, G., Greenfeld, R., Costantino, G., Hernndez, A. (2004, July). Using narratives to assess childrens social problem skills. Paper presented at the 112th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Honolulu, Hawaii. Howard, G. (1991). Culture tales: A narrative approach to thinking, cross-cultural psychology and psychotherapy. American Psychologist, 46, 187-197. Kirkman. M. (2002). Whats the plot? Applying narrative theory to research psychology. Australian Psychologist, 37, 30-38. Krinsky, R., Costantino, G., & Malgady, R. (1999, August). Delay of gratification, achievementmotivation, and aggression among minority children of polysubstance abusers. Paper presented at the 107th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Boston, MA. 119
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Lubin, N.M. (1955). The effect of color in the TAT on production of mentally retarded subjects. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 60, 336-370. Malgady, R. Costantino, G., & Rogler, L. (1984). Development of a Thematic Apperception Test (TEMAS) for urban Hispanic children. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 52, 986-996. Mancuso, J.C., & Sarbin, T.R., (1983). The Self-narrative in the enactment of roles. In T.R. Sarbin & K.E. Scheibe (Eds.), Studies in social identity (pp. 233-253). New York: Praeger. McAdams, D.P. (1994). The person: An introduction to personality psychology (2nd Ed.). Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace & Company. McAdams, D. P., & Pals, J. L. (2006). A new Big Five: Fundamental principles for an integrative science of personality. American Psychologist: 204-217. Milln-Arzuaga, F. (1990). Mother-child differences in values and acculturation: Their effect on achievement motivation and self-concept in Hispanic children. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, New York. Murstein, B. I. (1961). The role of the stimulus in the manifestation of fantasy. In J. Kagan & G.S. Lesser (Eds.), Contemporary issues in thematic apperceptive methods (pp. 229-287). Springfield, IL. Thomas. Paivio, A. (1971). Imagery and verbal processes. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. (1971). Mental imagery in the child. New York: Basic Books. Ritzler, B. (1993). TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story). Journal of Psycheducational Assessment, 11, 381-389.
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Ritzler, B. (1996). Projective methods for multicultural personality assessment: Rorschach, TEMAS, and Early Memory Procedures. In L. A. Suzuki, P.J. Meller, & J. G. Ponterotto (Eds.), Handbook of Multicultural Assessment: Clinical, Psychological and Educational applications (pp.115-136). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Sarbin, T.R. (1986). Narrative psychology: The storied nature of human conduct. New York: Praeger. Sardi, G. M., Summo, B., Cornabuci, C., & Sulfaro, C. (2001, July). Relationship between Aggression, Cognition and Moral Judgement in conflict resolution among Italian children. Paper presented by E. Costantino in G. Costantino (Chair), Multicultural/crosscultural validation of TEMAS: A new projective test. Symposium conducted at the VII European Congress of Psychology, London, England. Singer, J. L. & Pope, K. (1978). The power of human imagination: New Methods in psychotherapy. New York: Plenum Press. Sulfaro, C. (2000). Relationship between aggression and moral judgment. Unpublished Dissertation, Universita di Roma La Sapienza, Rome, Italy. Sullivan, H.S. (1953). The interpersonal theory of psychiatry. New York: W.W. Norton. Summo, B. (2000). Relationship between aggression and emotional functions in conflict resolution of 7 and 8 years old children. Unpublished Dissertation, Universita di Roma La Sapienza, Rome, Italy. Teglasi, H. (2001). Essential of TAT and other storytelling techniques assessment. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Thompson, C.E., & Bachrach, J. (1951). The use of color in the Thematic Apperception Test. Journal of Projective Techniques, 15, 173-184. Walton, J.R., Nuttall, R.L., & Vzquez-Nuttall, E. (1997). The impact of war on the mental health of children: A Salvadoran study. Child Abuse & Neglect, 21, 737-749. Yang, C., Kuo, L., & Costantino G. (2003). Validity of Asian TEMAS in Taiwanese children: Preliminary data. Paper presented at the European Congress of Psychology, Vienna, Austria.
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Authors note: Based on papers originally presented as a poster session at the American Psychological Association, August 2006, New Orleans, USA; a poster session presented at 26th International Congress of Applied Psychology of the International Association of Appilied Psychology, July, 2006, Athens, Greece; and a poster session presented at the Annual Convention of the Asociacin de Psicologa de Puerto Rico, November 2005, San Juan, PR.
Acknowledgments: This paper is based on the findings of the study Evaluation of the effectiveness of narrative techniques in the assessment of mental disorders symptomatology and coping skills of Hispanic children at high risk of mental disorders conducted from 2003-2005, at the Center for Research and Outreach in Hispanic Mental Health and other Health Disparities National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (CROHMOD) (Grant Number- 1 R24 MD00152-01). To inquire about this study contact the PI at ecardalda@gmail.com.
Special thanks to Victoria Jimnez-Surez and Jos V. Martnez for their assistance in preparing this paper.
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Main Character Secondary Character Event Setting
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Table 2 Factor loadings for items included in the Personality Scales Component Item Original Factor 1 Achievement Motivation Delay of Gratification Self Concept Interpersonal Relations Aggression Moral Judgment Reality Testing Sexual Identity Personality Function Personality Function Personality Function Personality Function Personality Function Personality Function Personality Function Personality Function .770 .719 .620 .717 .709 .514 .691 .600 Sub-Scales 2 3
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Anxiety/Depression Personality Function .539
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Table 3 Factor loadings for items included in the Cognitive Scales Component
Item
Original Factor 1
Sub-Scales 2 3
Total Transformations Transformation: Secondary Character Transformation: Setting Transformation: Event Omissions: Main Character Transformation: Main Character Total Omissions Omissions: Setting Omissions: Event Omissions: Secondary Character
Cognitive Functions Cognitive Functions Cognitive Functions Cognitive Functions Cognitive Functions Cognitive Functions Cognitive Functions Cognitive Functions Cognitive Functions Cognitive Functions
.915 .869 .821 .792 .570 .454 .912 .842 .691 .455
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Sequencing Imagination Conflict Cognitive Functions Cognitive Functions Cognitive Functions .777 .756 .308
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Note. The following Cognitive Function items from the original TEMAS scale did not load in the analysis: Reaction Time, Verbal Fluency, Total Time, and Inquiries.
Table 4 Items included in the Affective Scales Component Item Neutral Angry Fearful Inappropriate Affect Happy Ambivalent Relationships Sad Original Factor Affective Functions Affective Functions Affective Functions Affective Functions Affective Functions Affective Functions Cognitive Functions* Affective Functions Factor loading .960 .868 .833 .775 .774 .691 .652 .598
Note. The asterisk shows the only item that changed from the original TEMAS scales.
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Cross-cultural comparisons of the TEMAS group and individual testing formats
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Elsa B. Cardalda Ponce School of Medicine and Health Sciences Interamerican University of Puerto Rico
Giuseppe Costantino Touro College Lutheran Medical Center/Lutheran Family Health Centers
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administered with group/written format, significant differences were found between the Hispanic children in PR and NY, showing less verbal fluency in the latter group. Story omissions were significantly different in PR between the TEMAS test group/written and individual/oral formats, and between the stories of students in PR and NY administered the group/written format. Significant transformations in the stories were found between the children administered in PR the individual/oral format and the children in NY administered the group/written format.
Key words: TEMAS test, Hispanic children, cultural sensitivity, assessment for multicultural populations
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estudiantes Hispanos de quinto grado residentes de New York se les administr la prueba solamente en el formato grupal/escrito. Este estudio tuvo como objetivo determinar si los relatos de los nios en la prueba TEMAS variaba en fluidez verbal, omisiones y transformaciones en funcin del formato de la administracin (individual/grupal) y lugar de residencia (Puerto Rico / New York). Los resultados no mostraron diferencias significativas en la fluidez verbal de las historias producidas por ambos formatos en la muestra de Puerto Rico. Sin embargo, al
comparar la fluidez verbal de las historias con el formato grupal/escrito, se encontraron diferencias significativas entre los nios hispanos en Puerto Rico y New York, mostrando menor fluidez verbal los estudiantes de New York. Las omisiones en las historias fueron
significativamente diferentes en funcin del tipo de formato entre los estudiantes de Puerto Rico. Igualmente, existieron diferencias significativas entre los estudiantes de New York y Puerto Rico dentro del formato grupal/escrito. Por otro lado, se encontraron diferencias significativas en las trasformaciones narrativas realizadas entre los estudiantes de Puerto Rico que utilizaron el formato individual/oral y los estudiantes de New York que utilizaron el formato grupal/escrito.
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Bernal, I. (1991). The relationship between levels of acculturation, the Roberts Apperception Test for Children, and the TEMAS: Tell-Me-A-Story. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, California School of Professional Psychology, Los Angeles. Bloom, L. & Lahey, M., (1978). Taxonomy of language. Language Development and Language Disorders. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., One Wiley Drive, Somerset, NJ. Cardalda, E. B. (2002-2006). Evaluation of the effectiveness of narrative techniques in the assessment of mental disorders symptomatology and coping skills of Hispanic children at high risk of mental disorders, National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (Grant Number- 1 R24 MD00152-01). Cardalda, E. B., Costantino, G., Ortiz-Vargas, N., Len-Velzquez, M., & Jimnez-Surez, V. (2007). Relationships between the TEMAS Test and School Achievement Measures in Puerto Rican Children. Ciencias de la Conducta, 22, (1), 79-102. Cardalda, E. B., Costantino, G., Sayers, S., Machado, W., & Guzmn, L. (2002). Use of TEMAS with patients referred for sexual abuse: Case studies of Puerto Rican children. Revista Puertorriquea de Psicologa; Asociacin de Psicologa de Puerto Rico, 13, 167-183. Cardalda, E.B., Jimnez, V., Santos, S., Albizu, C., & Martnez, J.V. (2003, July). TEMAS test to assess coping strategies in high-risk Hispanic children. Paper presented at the European Congress of Psychology, Vienna, Austria.
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Content (Semantics)
Short and incomplete sentences Fewer complex sentence Lack of complexity of sentence structure Difficulty in applying capitalization and punctuation rules
Poor vocabulary skills Word finding difficulties Problems in topic continuation Under-development reasoning related to identifying main idea in a story Poor narrative discourse skills
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Table 2 All schools in the study: means and (SD) School School School School 1 2 3 4 School 5 School 6 School 7 School 8 F values
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5.10 3.30
7.85*
Trans.
2.28 3.03
3.59*
*p < .001
Note: Puerto Rico Group, 1, 2, 3 & 6; New York Group, 5 & 7; Puerto Rico Individual, 4 & 8
Table 3 Verbal Fluency Compared by Format, Site, and Gender Puerto Rico Individual (n = 43) Mean SD Puerto Rico Group (n = 162) Mean SD New York Group (n = 108) Mean SD
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15.027 .000
2.813 .096
Table 4 Omissions Compared by Format, Site, and Gender Puerto Rico Individual (n = 43) Mean Total Gender F M F 2.58 2.29 .247 1.88 1.68 5.34 5.19 .083 3.43 3.13 4.07 2.70 6.608 3.20 1.96 2.37 SD 1.72 Puerto Rico Group (n = 162) Mean 5.27 SD 3.30 New York Group (n = 108) Mean 3.47 SD 2.80
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Table 5 Transformations Compared by Format, Site, and Gender Puerto Rico Individual (n = 43) Mean Total Gender F M F P 1.00 1.42 .497 .485 1.28 1.89 1.70 2.70 7.018 .009 1.81 2.99 2.70 2.40 .341 .561 2.88 2.33 1.30 SD 1.74 Puerto Rico Group (n = 162) Mean 2.13 SD 2.43 New York Group (n = 108) Mean 2.57 SD 2.64
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Authors note: Based on papers presented at the 9th European Congress of Psychology, Granada, Spain, July 3-8, 2005; and at the American Psychological Association anual Convention, 2004, Hawaii,. USA. An early version of this paper was originally published in Antologia de Investigaciones de los Programas Acadmicos de la Universidad Carlos Albizu, compiled by J.R. Rodrguez- Gmez (2008).
Acknowledgments: This paper is based on the findings of the study Evaluation of the effectiveness of narrative techniques in the assessment of mental disorders symptomatology and 158
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Elsa B. Cardalda Interamerican University of Puerto Rico Ponce School of Medicine and Health Sciences
Giuseppe Costantino Touro College Lutheran Medical Center/Lutheran Family Health Centers
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This study explored the relationships and differences of two standardized tests that can be used for Hispanic children, the TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story), and the BASC (Behavior Assessment System for Children). The tests were administered to low-income children ages 9-11, in Puerto Rico and in New York City. Besides examining the relationships between variables, these two instruments were correlated with the criterion of school grades for the sample in Puerto Rico. But in NYC this data could not be collected. Results showed significant correlations and differences between the TEMAS and the BASC, both in Puerto Rico and in New York. Furthermore, findings showed positive correlations between TEMAS scales and school grades; thus supporting the notion that the TEMAS is a valid instrument in evaluating low SES Hispanic school-age children. Key words: TEMAS, BASC, Hispanic children, Cultural competence
Resumen Este estudio explora las relaciones y diferencias de dos pruebas estandarizadas que pueden ser utilizadas para nios hispanos, el TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story), y el BASC (Behavior Assessment System for Children). El TEMAS y el BASC fueron administrados a nios edades de 9-11 de escasos recursos econmicos en Puerto Rico, y en la ciudad de Nueva York. Aparte de examinar las relaciones entre el TEMAS y el BASC, estos dos instrumentos fueron correlacionados con el criterio de notas escolares para la muestra en Puerto Rico pero en Nueva York esta data no fue colectada. Palabras claves: TEMAS, BASC, nios hispanos, competencia cultural
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Educational Disparities The literature has widely shown that Hispanic students tend to show mental health disparities when compared to other groups. Early studies found lower self esteem among Hispanic children when compared to African American or White children (Anderson & Johnson, 1971; Fisher, 1974), while others reported more behavioral problems among Hispanic children and adolescents compared to Whites (e.g., Langer, Gersfen, & Eisenberg, 1974). Canino, Gould, Prupis, and Shafer (1986) found that Hispanic children and adolescents reported more depression and anxiety symptoms than Blacks and this is consistent with a nation-wide epidemiological study that reported Hispanics had the highest rates of depression and other affective disorders, and higher co-morbidity, compared to any other ethnic groups (Kessler, McGonagle, Zhao & Nelson, 1994). Other depression studies have showed that Hispanic adolescents express somatic complaints more prominently than Whites and Blacks (Roberts, 1992). Mental health disparities were also found in a study of prevalence and risk factors among a multi-national group of Hispanic young adolescents (Vega, Zimmerman, Warheit, Apospori, Gil; 1993), including a high prevalence of drug use. According to the New York State Office of Mental Health (1994), among the primary DSM-III-R diagnoses of nearly 8000 children and adolescents enrolled in community-based services, the rate of disruptive behavior disorders (46.9%) eclipses all others for the Hispanic youth. Furthermore, these disorders were virtually equally distributed between conduct and oppositional disorders. Educational disparities have also been noted for Hispanics (Aspira, 1993; New York City Department of City Planning, 1994). A recent study conducted by the Center of Puerto Rican
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and New York? 2. Are there significant correlations between the TEMAS and BASC scales and school
grades in Puerto Rico? 3. Are scale scores of TEMAS and BASC significantly different in Puerto Rico than in New
York students?
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Table 1 Puerto Rico and New York: Mean and SD for TEMAS scales
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Mean (SD) New York 41.21 (9.49) 38.81 (10.25) 35.41 (11.86) 41.76 (12.92) 43.43 (11.49) 40.98 (10.61) 43.71 (9.29) 38.59 (10.98) 39.68 (11.02) 31.16 (7.82) 44.02 (8.35)
42.98 (11.07) 39.06 (9.16) 37.61 (9.74) 39.79 (14.62) 35.25 (12.80) 38.65 (11.34) 29.40 (20.35) 39.57 (15.14) 41.11 (11.01) 41.88 (11.01) 47.05 (10.39)
1.58 (.210) .04 (.848) 2.22 (.138) 1.09 (.297) 24.24 (.000) 2.43 (.121) 43.31 (.000) .294 (.588) .91 (.341) 67.21 (.000) 5.50 (.020)
Table 2 Puerto Rico and New York: Mean and SD for BASC self report scales
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Mean (SD) BASC composites/scales: School maladjustment Attitude to School Attitude to Teachers Clinical maladjustment Atipicality Locus of Control Social Stress Anxiety Depression Sense of Inadequacy Personal adjustment Relations With Parents Interpersonal Relations Self Esteem Puerto Rico 52.54 (9.75) 50.29 (8.58) 54.87 (8.70) 51.79 (8.70) 51.48 (9.17) 52.40 (7.87) 50.85 (9.70) 51.53 (8.25) 52.79 (10.10) 53.19 (10.11) 45.63 (9.96) 45.18 (12.34) 44.58 (11.16) 47.93 (7.13)
Mean (SD) New York 49.35 (8.83) 48.80 (8.71) 49.88 (10.11) 49.97 (8.71) 49.44 (9.81) 50.60 (8.66) 49.28 (8.50) 50.34 (8.12) 51.72 (10.28) 52.70 (10.69) 50.40 (10.37) 49.47 (10.17) 49.22 (11.52) 50.10 (10.36)
6.27 (.013) 1.60 (.208) 15.14 (.000) 2.29 (.132) 2.47 (.118) 2.54 (.112) 1.60 (.208) 1.03 (.312) .32 (.575) .12 (.727) 11.76 (.001) 7.68 (.006) 8.97 (.003) 3.25 (.073)
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Table 3 Puerto Rico: Significant correlations between TEMAS & BASC scales
Scales TEMAS-Interpersonal relations and BASC-Clinical Maladjustment TEMAS-Interpersonal relations and BASC-Locus of Control TEMAS-Interpersonal relations and BASC-Anxiety TEMAS-Interpersonal relations and BASC-Depression TEMAS-Interpersonal relations and BASC-Sense of Inadequacy TEMAS-Interpersonal relations and BASC-Emotional Symptom Index TEMAS-Total Omissions and BASC-Locus of Control TEMAS-Total Omissions and BASC-Depression TEMAS-Total Omissions and BASC-Relations with Parents
Correlation (p) -.20 (.040) -.25 (.009) -.21 (.033) -.25 (.010) -.26 (.007) -.21 (.033) .22 (.021) .24 (.014) -.20 (.041)
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Scales TEMAS-Verbal Fluency and BASC-School Maladjustment TEMAS-Verbal Fluency and BASC-Attitude to School TEMAS-Total Omissions and BASC-Locus of Control TEMAS-Delay of Gratification and BASC-Depression TEMAS-Sexual Identity and BASC-Self-esteem
Correlation (p) -.22 (.021) -.27 (.005) .19 (.047) -.32 (.048) .30 (.002)
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Table 6 Puerto Rico: Significant correlations between BASC scales & School Grades Scales BASC-School Maladjustment BASC-Attitude to School BASC-Attitude to Teachers BASC-Clinical Maladjustment BASC-Atipicallity BASC-Locus of Control Correlation (p) -.35 (.000) -.31 (.001) -.26 (.006) -.26 (.007) -.19 (.046) -.26 (.007)
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Box 1 Group format Instructions of TEMAS This is a story writing assignment. Please write the most complete and beautiful story that you can think of for each of the cards that will be shown to you. Look carefully at the people and places in the picture and then write a complete story about each picture that has a beginning and an end. Use the questions below to write your story. 1. What is happening in the picture now? 2. What happened before? 3. What will happen in the future? 4. Who is the main character in the story?
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Authors note: Based on a paper presented at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, USA, August 18-21, 2005.
Acknowledgments: This paper is based on the findings of the study Evaluation of the effectiveness of narrative techniques in the assessment of mental disorders symptomatology and coping skills of Hispanic children at high risk of mental disorders conducted from 2003-2005, at the Center for Research and Outreach in Hispanic Mental Health and other Health Disparities National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (CROHMOD) (Grant Number- 1 R24 MD00152-01). To inquire about this study contact the PI at ecardalda@gmail.com. Special thanks to Victoria Jimnez-Surez and Nyrma Ortiz-Vargas for their assistance in the preparation of this paper.
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Elsa B. Cardalda Ponce School of Medicine and Health Sciences Interamerican University of Puerto Rico
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Key words: TEMAS test, Hispanic students in Puerto Rico and New York, racial descriptions
Resumen Este estudio cualitativo con nios puertorriqueos examin cmo en sus narrativas ellos representaban la raza de los personajes de TEMAS. Los nios fueron administrados la prueba proyectiva/narrativa TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) y algunos de los nios tambin recibieron el Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), lo cual permiti una comparacin entre las pruebas TEMAS y TAT en trminos de la representacin racial de los personajes en las narrativas. Para evaluar las representaciones de raza, las narrativas fueron analizadas con respecto a las descripciones
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Palabras claves: prueba TEMAS, estudiantes hispanos en Puerto Rico y Nueva York, descripciones raciales
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With Puerto Ricans no less than with other southern peoples, the color of the skin is an elusive criterion E. Schepses (1949) Puerto Rican delinquent boys in New York City
Introduction Often we assume that the systematic application of standardized instruments serve children well, even when applied to culturally and linguistically diverse populations. However, a volume of research over the last two decades has clearly shown that instruments need to be culturally adapted for minority underserved children. Accordingly, an area of concern is the validity of using psychological instruments normalized and standardized with white middle class children for ethnic/racial minority children. To address this need, the TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) (Costantino, Malgady & Rogler, 1988) a projective/narrative test for Hispanic children and adolescents was developed. The need for cultural competence in psychological assessment as well other areas, has been made explicit by the new guidelines of the American Psychological Association (Guidelines on Multicultural Education, Training, Research, Practice, and Organizational Change for Psychologists- American Psychological Association, 2002) which recommends tests as the TEMAS that are culturally sensitive/competent for ethnic, racial and linguistic minority populations. The TEMAS multicultural test is normed for Puerto Rican children in New York and Puerto Rico (Costantino, Malgady, Casullo & Castillo, 1991). To our knowledge, there is no other normed instrument for projective/narrative assessment available that validly assesses the mental health needs of Puerto Rican children.
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Public school and private school groups in Puerto Rico The first school group consisted of 64 students (27 females and 37 males) who attended a public school in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The mean age of the sample was 9.09 (SD = 2.53), with a range covering the ages from 5 to 13. A second group of 93 participants (44 females and 49 males) were selected from a private school in the San Juan metropolitan area. The mean age for this group was 8.89 (SD = 2.02), with ages ranging from 6 to 13. Data bank sample of private and public schools in Puerto Rico A third large group of students was identified from the TEMAS normative data set available for Puerto Rican children in Puerto Rico. From that normative data set a sample was selected including 134 cases from public schools (68 females and 66 males) of ages ranging from 5 to 12. The mean age of children for this group was 8.08 (SD = 2.10). Another group from the data set included 141 cases from private schools (68 females and 73 males), ranging from ages 5 to 12. The mean age of children in this sample was 8.46 (SD = 2.08). Puerto Rican children in New York The sample of Puerto Rican students living in New York consisted of 105 (61 females and 44 males) (see Table 1 for a description of the characteristics of the samples). This group of students was comprised of students in the age range of 5 to 13 (M = 11.31; SD = 1.73). The participants attended public schools and could be described as of low to lower middle class. All of the students were administered the TEMAS but 44 cases were administered both the TEMAS and TAT instruments.
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Discussion The findings support the statements of Rodrguez (1989) about the diversity of physical traits used for racial categorization, but clearly show the use of skin color as the primary trait defining racial categories. Both private and public school children use skin color as their main racial marker. These results support previous findings such as those presented by Mayo Santana,
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Public
Private
Normative
Normative
Puerto
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Table 2 Frequencies of racial categories describing skin color Public school in PR Private school in PR Normative data in PR private schools Normative data in PR public schools Puerto Rican children in NY
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categories = 10 categories =11 Blanco/Blanqu ito (13) Blanca/Blanquit o (21) Negra/Negrito (13)
Negro/Negrito (5))
Negro (7)
Triguea (10)
White (14)
Oscura (2)
De color (2)
Clarita (1)
Tan (7)
Canela (1)
Carne (2))
India (1)
Marrn (1)
Morena (2)
Roja (1)
Rosada (1)
Oscura (1)
Prieto (1)
Brown/Blanca (1)
Brown-black (1)
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Pink (1)
Prieto (1) Tan-brown(1) Light skin dark (1) Total = 47 Total = 50 Total = 58 Total = 59 Total = 96
Table 3 Frequencies of racial categories describing other physical features Public school in PR Private school in PR Normative data in PR private schools Normative data in PR public schools Puerto Rican children in NY
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Total = 4
Total = 15
Total = 20
Total = 28
Total = 40
Table 4
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Public school in PR
Private school in PR
Browncita Negrita
De color Canela
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Authors note: Based on a papers originally presented at the Puerto Rican Studies Association Conference, September 2006, Cornell University, New York, USA; and papers presented at the 46th Annual Convention of the Asociacin de Psiclogos de Puerto Rico, San Juan PR, November 1999 and at the XXXVII Congreso Interamericano de Psicologa, Caracas, Venezuela, July 1999. Acknowledgments: Special thanks in the elaboration of this final manuscript are owed to the collaborating students from Carlos Albizu University: Brenda Castro, Jos R. Dvila, Darice Orobitz, Brenda Martnez, & Maribel Gonzlez. Also, my gratitude is extended to Dr. Carmen Albizu, Prof. Amilcar Tirado and Mr. Manuel Santiago for their thoughtful readings and recommendations for this paper.
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A Achenbach, T. M., 36, 39, Adams, R. M., 173 Alatorre Alava, S., 82 Albizu, C., 132 Allen, J., 12, 13, 15, 17 Anderson, J. F., 162 Antrop-Gonzlez., R, 82 American Psychological Association, 61 Apospori, E., 162 Aschieri, F., 32, 38, 107, 131, 168 Aspira, L. B., 80, 162 Atkinson, D. R., 12 Augello, C., 38, 107 Auld, F. Jr., 21, 106 B Bachrach, J., 19, 104 Bailey, J., 107, 131, 168 Bandura, A., 21, 106 Barajas Howarth, H., 83 Bell, S., 165 Bernal, G., 17, 80 Bernal, I., 62, 80, 81, 90, 92, 107, 132, 164
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Cross cultural research using the TEMAS test with Hispanic children by Elsa B. Cardalda is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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