Analytic Procedures

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 21 of Discrepant Results in Mental Health Research outlines directions for future research on analytic procedures used to integrate or model mental health data. Researchers must not only consider new approaches to designing the next generation of mental health instruments; they also ought to consider strategies for refining existing analytic procedures. Researchers must also focus on developing procedures that transform how they integrate or model data collected with large samples and standardized assessment batteries. Further, researchers must develop procedures for integrating case-level data as these procedures have the potential to significantly advance researchers’ abilities to improve the clinical utility of scores taken from mental health instruments. Researchers would also benefit from computer applications that provide them with feedback about the fit between procedures’ usage assumptions and the data conditions to which they will be applied. This feedback would facilitate open scientific practices regarding which procedures researchers use and when they use them.