Convergent and Discriminant Validity of Measures: Employee Problem Appraisal Form

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the convergent and discriminant validity of counselor and client ratings of common presenting problems at a counseling center for unviersity employees. Each subject was asked to complete the Employee Problem Appraisal Form (EPAF) at three points in time: during the intake interview (N = 306); after eight weeks of counseling (N = 114); and at termination after 16 or more counseling sessions (N = 80). The counselor for each client also completed a parallel form of the EPAF at each time interval. Five scales on the EPAF were selected for multitrait-multimethod analysis on the basis of internal-consistency estimates. Non-zero convergent validity values (correlations between independent measures of the same trait) ranged from .27 to .66. That four of these non-zero convergent validity values were higher than correlations between independent measures of different traits (heterotrait-heteromethod values) provided some evidence of discriminant validity. Elevations of correlations between repeated measures of different traits (heterotrait-monomethod values) were indicative of shared method variance in both counselor and client ratings. Although non-zero convergent validity values in this study were not large, they increased over time and compared favorably with measures of similar psychological variables based on independent ratings of the same trait (Campbell and Fiske, 1959). These results were discussed relative to improvement of the EPAF, and suggestions were offered for further research using this instrument.