Validity Indicator Profile (VIP®)

Designed to help meet the increasing need for a well-validated, psychometrically sound test that can provide empirical support in courtrooms and other legal institutions, the VIP test provides a broad spectrum of information about an individual's performance on an assessment battery. As a measure of response styles, test results help assess whether the results of cognitive, neuropsychological or other types of testing should be considered representative of an individual's overall capacities.

The VIP test is intended to provide support for conclusions that may impact the awarding of large sums of money or the determination of competence or culpability. As a result, the test is potentially useful to neuropsychologists, forensic, and clinical psychologists in a variety of situations, including:

Civil and criminal trials

• Competency-to-stand-trial evaluations
• Medical insurance examinations
• Social Security disability reviews
• Workers compensation examinations
• Rehabilitative treatment assessments

• The VIP test contains verbal and nonverbal subtests, each of which can be administered independently.
• As a self-administered forced-choice validity indicator, the VIP test provides more information than a yes/no decision regarding malingering. The test helps assess the relationship between the individual's intention and the effort in completing the test. Based on this information, the report categorizes the individual's style as Compliant, Inconsistent, Irrelevant or Suppressed.  
• A graph of results helps make it easy to explain the results in hearing or court proceedings.
• When used as part of a battery of tests, it complements most personality assessments.
• When used as a screening tool, the VIP test can help indicate who may not benefit from further, more extensive neuropsychological testing.

Validity Indicators
The VIP test uses six primary validity indicators to classify an individual's performance as either valid or invalid.

Response Styles
The test also categorizes the individual's response style as:

• Compliant
  Suggests an individual's intent to perform well, along with the probability that his or her performance is an accurate representation of ability
• Inconsistent
  Suggests that the respondent is motivated to perform well but the effort is inconsistent or minimal
• Irrelevant
  Suggests that the individual intended to perform poorly and that he or she was most likely responding without regard to item content
• Suppressed
  Suggests high effort to perform poorly and that the individual tried to feign cognitive defects

Scoring rules for the VIP test were developed using a sample of more than 1,000 clinical and nonclinical subjects. Results were then cross-validated using an independent sample of 312 cases comprised of 5 criterion groups:

• Traumatic brain injured patients
• Suspected malingerers
• Normal subjects
• A "faking bad" group
• A group of random responders

Interpretive Report  

Respondent's answers are not only compared to a normative group but against the individual's own demonstrated abilities. The report contains two key sections:

• Classification of Test Performance
  Summarizes the respondent's approach to the assessment and includes a narrative explanation of the validity determination.
• Expected and Actual Performance Curve
  Graphs the test taker's performance on test items by ascending order of item difficulty. The visual representation gives the evaluator an immediate overview of the respondent's response style. A more detailed interpretation is included in the measurements and narrative that follow the graph.

View a sample Interpretive Report.

Profile Report  

The report provides a graphical representation of the test taker's performance on test items.

View a sample Profile Report.

Q Local™ Software - Enables you to score assessments, report results, and store and export data on your computer.

Mail-in Scoring Service - Specially designed answer sheets are mailed to us for processing within 24–48 hours of receipt and returned via regular mail.

- Allows you to score the assessments at your site.

This test is available on Q-global™ - Pearson's new web-based platform for scoring and reporting. It's accessible anytime, from any computer connected to the Internet. Secure and affordable, this system helps you quickly and automatically organize information, generate scores, and produce accurate, comprehensive reports.
Q-global also offers:

• 24/7 secure, web-based access
• Portability: Q-global can be used on mobile devices such as a laptop or tablet
• On-demand, reliable scoring and comprehensive reporting solutions
• Pricing on a per-report basis

View a list of commonly asked questions regarding the Validity Indicator Profile (VIP®) products.

Richard Frederick, PhD

View these brief training modules about Q-global:

• Module 1: Gaining Access to Q-global
• Module 2: Signing in and setting up your account
• Module 3: Managing sub-accounts
• Module 4: How to generate reports