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Psychology vocabulary · Assessment and Diagnosis

Assessment

Meaning in psychology, with examples

/əˈsesmənt/nounCore term

In psychology, assessment means: The process of gathering information about a person through interviews, observation and tests in order to understand their difficulties and plan help.

In Turkish: değerlendirme, psikolojik değerlendirme

How it is used

A key word in clinical and educational psychology. You carry out, conduct or complete an assessment; services talk about initial assessment, cognitive assessment and risk assessment. Assessment is broader than testing and does not always lead to a diagnosis.

Example sentences

  1. The initial assessment takes about ninety minutes and includes a few questionnaires.

  2. We completed a cognitive assessment before suggesting any changes at school.

Common collocations

  • carry out an assessment
  • initial assessment
  • cognitive assessment
  • psychological assessment
  • assessment tool
  • diagnosisThe process of identifying which mental or physical condition explains a person's difficulties, or the name of the condition that is identified.
  • psychometricRelating to the measurement of psychological qualities such as intelligence, personality and symptoms, and to the methods used to check how good those measures are.
  • case formulationA shared, working explanation of how a client's problems developed and what keeps them going, built from the assessment and used to plan therapy.
  • risk assessmentA structured evaluation of how likely it is that a person may harm themselves or others, or be harmed, and of the factors that raise or lower that risk.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Assessment and Diagnosis

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This page explains English vocabulary for learners. It is not medical advice.