The Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI) Measure Research Paper

Introduction

Psychological measure determines psychotic properties like depression. The Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI) measures the level of depression in children. It is necessary to carry out this measure since it helps in identifying the children who are suffering from depression and decide on the appropriate intervention for them in time. This will help in improving their self esteem, educational achievement and peer relationship.

The author of the article on “Depression in Children: Children’s Depression Inventory”(Crowley 1993) has used both the classical test score and generalizability theories. Classical test score considers just one measurement error at a given time ignoring the possibility of interaction effects of other sources of measurement.

On the other hand, generalizability theory which considers the sources of error variance and the interaction effects of the sources. He uses generalizability to assess the level of depression symptomatology so as to give data that can be generalized to tests, items and even different occasions due to its reliability.

His study focused on the use of both theories in measuring childhood depression. The individuals used in his study included both males and females between ages 11-16, grades 5-7 from all ethnic composition even though the ratio varied. He used the CDI in exploring psychometric properties. He demonstrated on how the classical and generalizability theories gave totally different estimations even on the same data.

In clarification of conceptual issues of depression in children, Chartier & Lassen(1994) in their article “Adolescent depression: Children’s Depression Inventory norms, suicidal ideation, and gender effects – weak”, demonstrate the need of studying the depression’s normative patterns in an attempt of examining the contribution of gender, developmental level and other variables to such parameters.

Unlike Crowley (1993) who focused on lower grades, Chartier and Lassen based their research on the analysis among the adolescents. In this research there was also an examination of the responses of adolescents on suicidal ideation just the same as Susan’s article to the extent at which some killed themselves and others opted to but due to proper thoughts, they thought otherwise.

This research used subjects from grade 7-12 and thus regarded as the continuation of the CDI measure. This group constituted both students in junior and senior high school. In both articles, the CDI uses the 27 scale in analyzing the level of depression in an individual where scores between 11-19 indicate mild depression and 19-27 indicate severe depression.

In the second article, the research shows that there are no noteworthy effects when considering grade levels but with gender, there were appreciable differences realized since women showed a high overall depression scores. In this article, the researcher carried out ANOVAs tests to analyze the test sores. The samples used consisted of the white, middle class urban adolescents unlike in the former research whose samples consisted of all races.

Conclusion

Both the articles have discussed on the usefulness of the Children’s Depression Inventory in determining the extent at which the children may be affected by depression. There are several similarities and differences between the two articles with regard to CDI. Among the differences discussed above, there are variations in the works of different researchers.

References

Chartier G. & Lassen M. (1994). Adolescent Depression: Children’s Depression Inventory Norms, Suicidal Ideation, and Gender Effects – Weak. Web.

Crowley S. (1993). Depression in Children: Children’s Depression Inventory. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American educational research association. Atlanta: GA