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RCS ADMINISTERING PROCEDURES AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN BLACK ADOLESCENT

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INTRODUCTION

Recent scholarship, according to Franchi & Andronikof-Sanglade (1999:118), shows a growing sensitivity to cultural issues in assessment practice and research. This is accompanied by a concern for methodological difficulties encountered when using psychometric techniques for cross-cultural purposes.
These include the absence of meaningful normative data for different cultural and sub-cultural groups as well as the difficulties inherent in developing such normative data. In many respects South African tests and testing practices may be regarded as the direct offspring of corresponding developments in the United States of America, Britain and Western Europe more broadly. In fact, some African tests are simply standardised adaptations of overseas tests (Huysamen, 1980:9). As far as psychological test development is concerned, the whole issue of cultural diversity has been ignored in most countries. In this regard Hall & Maramba (2001:12) claim that even American psychology itself should address issues of cultural diversity if it is to be responsive to the needs of an increasingly multicultural society. According to these scientists (Hall & Maramba, 2001:12), most theories and research in psychology have been developed by European Americans, particularly men, and often without consideration of cultural context. In this particular research context, it is important to determine how much attention is being devoted to cultural diversity in psychology, and what impact theories and research on cultural diversity have on the field. Huysamen (1980:19) argues that in South Africa, the developer of psychological tests is faced with a problem of considerable complexity. Apart from the two former official languages, Afrikaans and English, the South African test developer has to cater for at least eight different language groups (Zulu, Xhosa, Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Tswana, Venda, Tsonga and Swazi). To add to this complexity, each language group also tends to represent different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, which means that merely translating the same test content into various languages does not completely solve the problem of cultural fairness and accuracy.
In this study, I assessed black South African adolescents using the Rorschach Inkblot Method (RIM) – an inkblot test that has been standardised for Americans and Europeans. According to Louw & Edwards (1993:41), psychological tests are measuring instruments that are constructed according to strict scientific rules and which evaluates the degree to which certain attributes of personality are present or absent. Psychological tests that are standardised remain the most widely used methods for gathering psychological data. The Rorschach Inkblot Method (RIM) is one such instrument. The participants in this study were not exposed to psychological tests and not familiar with Western culture. South Africa is both a multicultural and multilingual society. In order to conduct this research which is concerned with the psychological assessment of the 14 year old black South Africans from disadvantaged economic areas, it might be useful to briefly sketch the following: South Africa’s historical background, the background of African adolescents, the history of psychological tests, cross-cultural psychology, current psychological trends as well as the value of the Rorschach Inkblot Method (RIM) test.

WHAT MOTIVATED ME TO CHOOSE THIS STUDY?

My interest in conducting a study on the administering procedures of psychological tests on South African black learners developed as a result of my past experience as an intern psychologist at a South African historically white university. I was puzzled by the manner in which that particular university discriminated against students according to race. During the first two weeks of my internship, I found out that all the clients who consulted were white.
I was the only black intern psychologist and not allowed to assess white clients, the reason being I was not fluent in Afrikaans even though some of them were English speaking. That bothered me because I could speak English. When I raised my concern I was told that some white clients might not feel comfortable with me as an assessor and I was advised to visit schools and recruit African clients that I could assess, on the grounds that I speak African languages fluently. I felt rejected but I did not despair. I had to put more effort to everything I did, for instance, I translated the content from Afrikaans to English before I studied and recruited clients before I could assess them. Recruiting clients had its challenges as well. Most of the parents were illiterate and unemployed. Even though the assessments were free of charge for the disadvantaged, the clients that I had experienced difficulties to come to the clinic because they did not have transport, money for public transport and money to buy food. I was obliged to arrange my own transport to fetch them from schools, train stations or homes and bought them food because I was expected to assess a certain number of clients in a year. What came into my mind was “is this racial or cultural problem?” The field of psychology was new to most of my clients.
Some of them regarded me as an authoritative figure hence they bowed their heads as a sign of respect and were unable to give sufficient responses during the assessment, whereas some could not express themselves in English nor Afrikaans but responded in different African languages. Hence they did not have high score in psychological tests. The challenges of not having a leveled field in psychology between whites and blacks in South Africa also motivated me to pursue this study. My experience during my internship left me with many questions because as an intern student who followed the same programme with my colleagues during the course work, I was forced to follow a different programme because I did not share the same language and culture with the white clients. What continuously bothered me was: “Is the unleveled field in Psychology between blacks and white South Africa a racial, or cultural issue or both?” In line with my academic training a substantial amount of my internship work involved assessments of clients by using psychological tests.
Again, the field was not level. Apart from the fact that there was a limited amount of psychological tests available for my clients, it seemed to be quite acceptable to conduct some tests (deemed to be culture fair) regardless of the fact that those tests were standardised on American or European populations. I therefore developed an interest in the investigation of the adjustment of psychological tests to black South Africans in order to include them in the field of Psychology. I acknowledge that psychological testing is a dynamic process that is influenced by many factors, which includes (among others) culture, race, historical background and environment. I also acknowledge the fact that people are not exactly alike despite the fact that they are from the same cultural group, but my internship experience taught me that there are racial and cultural issues that can influence the performance of clients during psychological tests that we cannot ignore. This study focuses specifically on cultural issues and investigates only one psychological test, which is the Rorschach Comprehensive System.

READ  SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORY: IDENTITY, PLACE AND DISPLACEMENT

CHAPTER : INTRODUCING THE STUDY

  • 1.1 INTRODUCTION
  • 1.1.1 WHAT MOTIVATED ME TO CHOOSE THIS STUDY?
  • 1.1.2 SOUTH AFRICA’S HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
  • 1.1.3 BACKGROUND OF THE BLACK SOUTH AFRICAN ADOLESCENTS
  • 1.1.3.1 Home environment as an informal learning environment
  • 1.1.3.2 South African historically black schools as formal learning environment
  • 1.1.3.3 Socio-economic factors and family circumstances
  • 1.1.4 HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS IN SOUTH AFRICA
  • 1.1.5 CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY IN SOUTH AFRICA
  • 1.1.5.1 Reverence and respect for ancestors
  • 1.1.5.2 Sorcery
  • 1.1.5.3 Sickness due to natural causes
  • 1.1.6 CURRENT PSYCHOLOGICAL TRENDS IN SOUTH AFRICA
  • 1.1.7 THE VALUE OF THE RORSCHACH TEST WITHIN THE SOUTH AFRICAN CONTEXT
  • 1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT
  • 1.2.1 INTRODUCTION
  • 1.2.2 KEY RESEARCH QUESTIONS
  • 1.3 THE PURPOSE OF RESEARCH
  • 1.4 RESEARCH DESIGN
  • 1.4.1 EXPLANATION OF RESEARCH DESIGN
  • 1.4.1.1 Pre-test phase
  • 1.4.1.2 Adjustment of RCS phases
  • 1.4.1.3 Post-test phase
  • 1.4.1.4 Principles of research design
  • 1.5 SOUNDNESS (VALIDITY) OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
  • 1.5.1 CREDIBILITY
  • 1.5.2 TRANSFERABILITY
  • 1.5.3 DEPENDABILITY
  • 1.5.4 CONFIRMABILITY
  • 1.6 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
  • 1.7 DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS
  • 1.7.1 PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS
  • 1.7.2 PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS ADMINISTRATION
  • 1.7.3 STANDARDISATION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS
  • 1.7.4 RORSCHACH INKBLOT METHOD (RIM)
  • 1.7.5 RORSCHACH COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM (RCS)
  • 1.7.6 CULTURAL RESPONSIVENESS
  • 1.8 ORGANISATION OF THE THESIS
  • CHAPTER THE RORSCHACH COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM
    • 2.1 INTRODUCTION
    • 2.2 BACKGROUND
    • 2.3 THE RORSCHACH COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM (RCS)
    • 2.3.1 INTRODUCTION
    • 2.3.2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF RORSCHACH COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM
    • 2.3.3 CURRENT STATUS OF THE RORSCHACH COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM
    • 2.4 RORSCHACH COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM ADMINISTERING PROCEDURES
    • 2.4.1 INTRODUCTION
    • 2.4.2 THE PHASES OF ADMINISTERING RCS
    • 2.4.2.1 Introduction of the test and seating
    • 2.4.2.2 Instructions
    • 2.4.2.3 The response (Association) phase
    • 2.4.2.4 Problem of brief protocol
    • 2.4.2.5 Problem of lengthy records
    • 2.4.2.6 Recording the responses
    • 2.4.2.7 Inquiry phase
    • 2.5 RCS ADMINISTERING PROCEDURES AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN BLACK ADOLESCENT
    • 2.5.1 PREPARATION AND INTRODUCTION
    • 2.5.2 CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE
    • 2.5.3 LANGUAGE
    • 2.6 RORSCHACH COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION
    • 2.7 CONCLUSION
  • CHAPTER TOWARDS A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: CROSS CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY AND THE RORSCHACH COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM
    • 3.1 INTRODUCTION
    • 3.2 CULTURE AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT PROCEDURES
    • 3.2.1 CULTURAL AND CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES
    • 3.2.2 CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY
    • 3.2.3 CULTURAL ISSUES AND THE RCS
    • 3.2.4 THE RORSCHACH AND CULTURE-FAIR PROCEDURES
    • 3.3 RCS AND NORMATIVE DATA
    • 3.3.1 INFORMATION PROCESSING
    • 3.3.2 COGNITIVE MEDIATION
    • 3.3.3 AFFECTS
    • 3.3.4 INTERPERSONAL PERCEPTION
    • 3.4 THE RESEARCH AND LANGUAGE USAGE
    • 3.4.1 MULTI-LINGUALISM IN SOUTH AFRICA
    • 3.4.2 THE AFRICAN PERCEPTION OF ENGLISH AS A LANGUAGE
    • 3.5 CULTURE AND WORLD VIEWS
    • 3.6 AFRICENTRIC PERSPECTIVE, PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH AND PRACTICE
    • 3.7 THE RCS AND CULTURALLY DIVERSE CLIENTS
    • 3.7.1 THE CONCEPTUAL LEVEL
    • 3.7.2 THE BEHAVIOURAL LEVEL
    • 3.7.3 THE CULTURAL LEVEL
    • 3.8 CHALLENGES OF CROSS CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY ASSESSMENT
    • 3.8.1 EXAMINER’S VARIABLES
    • 3.8.1.1 Warm versus cold interpersonal relationship, or a rigid and aloof versus a natural manner
    • 3.8.1.2 Examiner’s own expectations
    • 3.8.2 SUBJECT VARIABLES
    • 3.8.2.1 Language limitation
    • 3.8.2.2 Cultural differences
    • 3.8.2.3 Motivational differences
    • 3.8.2.4 Perceptions of normality
    • 3.8.2.5 Interpersonal interaction and expectations
    • 3.8.3 PROCEDURAL VARIABLES
    • 3.8.3.1 Task appropriateness
    • 3.8.3.2 Form appropriateness
    • 3.8.3.3 Psychological equivalence
    • 3.9 CONCLUSION
  • CHAPTER THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE RORSCHACH COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM: THE PRE-TEST PHASE
    • 4.1 INTRODUCTION
    • 4.2 RESEARCH PROGRAM AND DESIGN
    • 4.2.1 INTRODUCTION
    • 4.2.2 EXPLANATION OF THE RESEARCH DESIGN
    • 4.2.2.1 Paradigm
    • 4.2.2.2 Researcher as an instrument
    • 4.2.2.3 Natural setting
    • 4.2.2.4 Case studies as research format
    • 4.2.3 DATA COLLECTION
    • 4.2.3.1 Setting and sampling
    • 4.2.3.2 Literature
    • 4.2.3.3 Interviews
    • 4.3.3.4 Observation
    • 4.2.3.5 Field notes
    • 4.2.3.6 Administration of the RCS: Pre-test and Post-test
    • 4.2.4 DATA ANALYSIS
    • 4.2.5 FINDINGS, INTERPRETATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
    • 4.3 LANGUAGE USAGE AND INVENTED LANGUAGE (IL)
    • 4.4 PRE-TEST PHASE
    • 4.4.1 PRE-TEST ADMINISTRATION PROCEDURE
    • 4.4.2 INTRODUCTION OF THE TEST
    • 4.4.3 THE TEST INSTRUCTIONS
    • 4.4.4 THE RESPONSE OR ASSOCIATION PHASE
    • 4.4.5 THE INQUIRY PHASE
    • 4.5 PARTICIPANTS’ BACKGROUND AND PRE-TEST OUTCOMES
    • 4.6 EXPLANATION OF THE PRE-TEST PHASE
    • 4.7 CONCLUSION
  • CHAPTER THE RORSCHACH COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM PRE-TEST PHASE: RESULTS AND INTERPRETATIONS
    • 5.1 INTRODUCTION
    • 5.2 PRE-TEST PHASE: RESULTS
    • 5.3 SYNOPSIS: PRE-TEST
    • 5.3.1 PRE-TEST RATE OF RESPONSES
    • 5.3.2 NO EYE CONTACT
    • 5.3.3 UNCERTAINTY
    • 5.3.4 LACK OF INTEREST AND HESITANT TO VERBAL EXPRESSION
    • 5.3.5 REPETITION OF CONCEPTS
    • 5.3.6 INABILITY TO REMEMBER THE INITIAL RESPONSES
    • 5.3.7 SIDE-BY-SIDE SEATING
    • 5.3.8 HOME LANGUAGE DEFICIENCY
    • 5.4 CONCLUSION
  • CHAPTER THE DEVELOPMENT AND ADMINISTERING OF ADJUSTED RORSCHACH COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM PROCEDURES: THE POST-TEST PHASE
    • 6.1 INTRODUCTION
    • 6.2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ADJUSTED RORSCHACH COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM (RCS) ADMINISTERING PROCEDURES
    • 6.2.1 INTRODUCTION
    • 6.2.2 VARIABLES TO BE CONSIDERED FOR THE ADJUSTMENT OF RORSCHACH COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM (RCS)
    • 6.2.2.1 Participant variables
    • 6.2.2.2 Researcher variables
    • 6.2.2.3 Procedural variables
    • 6.3 THE RORSCHACH COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM AND ADJUSTED RORSCHACH COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM ADMINISTERING PROCEDURES
    • 6.3.1 INTRODUCTION
    • 6.3.2 EXPLANATION OF ARCS
    • 6.3.2.1 Presentation Phase (PP-phase)
    • 6.3.2.2 Re-emphasising Phase (RE-phase)
    • 6.3.2.3 Preliminary Response Phase (PR-phase)
    • 6.3.2.4 Inquiry Phase (I-phase)
    • 6.3.2.5 Re-inquiry Phase (RI-phase)
    • 6.4 THE POST-TEST OUTCOMES
    • 6.5 SUMMARY OF THE POST-TEST OUTCOMES
    • 6.6 INTERPRETATION OF THE OUTCOMES
    • 6.6.1 Post-test rate of responses
    • 6.6.2 Seating arrangement
    • 6.6.3 Re-inquiry Phase
    • 6.6.4 Strategies to acquire concepts
    • 6.6.5 Participants’ reactions
    • 6.6.6 Language
    • 6.7 CONCLUSION
  • CHAPTER RESEARCH AND EVIDENCE IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE RORSCHACH COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM
    • 7.1 INTRODUCTION
    • 7.2 FINDINGS OF THE RORSCHACH COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM AND ADJUSTED RCS ADMINISTERING PROCEDURES
    • 7.3 INTERPRETATION OF THE FINDINGS
    • 7.4 SYNOPSIS
    • 7.5 SOUNDNESS OF THE STUDY
    • 7.5.1 CREDIBILITY
    • 7.5.2 TRANSFERABILITY
    • 7.5.3 DEPENDABILITY
    • 7.5.4 CONFIRMABILITY
    • 7.6 RECOMMENDATIONS
    • 7.6.1 TRAINING
    • 7.6.2 PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
    • 7.6.2.1 Language
    • 7.6.2.2 Interpersonal relationship and cultural difference
    • 7.7 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY
    • 7.8 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
    • 7.9 CONTRIBUTION OF THE STUDY
    • 7.9.1 THEORETICAL KNOWLEDGE
    • 7.9.2 RESEARCH KNOWLEDGE
    • 7.9.3 PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE
    • 7.10 CONCLUSION

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