When I was first coming out I found the COGIATI test online and the name stands for Combined Gender Identity And Transsexuality Inventory… Wow! That sound so official!
I was just reading a blog where the writer took the test and declared to the world that she is trans!
To that I say, whoa! Lets look at what makes a test study valid.
I remember reading those quizzes in Good Housekeeping and other magazines or the quizzes in Facebook, one that I remember taking a test that looked at the stress in your life and the quiz had a number questions and you got points for the stressors in your life.
Well one thing all those tests have in common is that none of them have been validate. Validated, what’s that?
Validating is where you prove that the test or survey does find what it was designed to test for, in other words supposed you wanted a test to determine if a person is dyslexic to prove that you would have to have a series of processes to prove that the test instrument does what it is designed to do.
On his website author David Kingsbury goes through the process:
Back when I was in grad school the Connecticut TransAdvocacy Coalition along with the Hartford Gay and Lesbian Health Collective received a grant to study the trans population in the greater Hartford area for AIDS and we had to go through a validation process. We had to see if our instrument found risk factors in our population group, so we had a focus group take the test and we interviewed them afterward to determine how reliable our survey instrument was in finding the risk of AIDS in our community.
So getting back to the COGIATI test and there is zero validation of the test instrument, there have been no testing to see how reliable it is and the trouble is people taking the test base their transition on COGIATI results. If the test comes out that your trans that probably just reinforces their belief that they’re trans, but what about those who results say that they are not trans? Will that dash their hoped of transitioning? Will it delay the person from seeking professional help?
If you want a good parlor discussion or you just take the test for entertainment that is one thing but to base your life on the test is wrong. They should have a disclaimer on the website saying that the test is just for entertainment purposes.
I was just reading a blog where the writer took the test and declared to the world that she is trans!
To that I say, whoa! Lets look at what makes a test study valid.
I remember reading those quizzes in Good Housekeeping and other magazines or the quizzes in Facebook, one that I remember taking a test that looked at the stress in your life and the quiz had a number questions and you got points for the stressors in your life.
Well one thing all those tests have in common is that none of them have been validate. Validated, what’s that?
Validating is where you prove that the test or survey does find what it was designed to test for, in other words supposed you wanted a test to determine if a person is dyslexic to prove that you would have to have a series of processes to prove that the test instrument does what it is designed to do.
On his website author David Kingsbury goes through the process:
- Protect construct validity. A construct is the behavior or outcome a researcher seeks to measure within a study, often revealed by the independent variable.
- Protect internal validity. Internal validity refers to how well your experiment is free of outside influence that could taint its results.
- Protect external validity. External validity refers to how well your study reflects the real world and not just an artificial situation.
- Protect conclusion validity. When the study is complete, researchers may still invalidate their data by making a conclusion error.
Back when I was in grad school the Connecticut TransAdvocacy Coalition along with the Hartford Gay and Lesbian Health Collective received a grant to study the trans population in the greater Hartford area for AIDS and we had to go through a validation process. We had to see if our instrument found risk factors in our population group, so we had a focus group take the test and we interviewed them afterward to determine how reliable our survey instrument was in finding the risk of AIDS in our community.
So getting back to the COGIATI test and there is zero validation of the test instrument, there have been no testing to see how reliable it is and the trouble is people taking the test base their transition on COGIATI results. If the test comes out that your trans that probably just reinforces their belief that they’re trans, but what about those who results say that they are not trans? Will that dash their hoped of transitioning? Will it delay the person from seeking professional help?
If you want a good parlor discussion or you just take the test for entertainment that is one thing but to base your life on the test is wrong. They should have a disclaimer on the website saying that the test is just for entertainment purposes.
Wow, I had forgotten about that test! I remember taking it so many years ago and then shaking my head at the lack of science backing it up. Despite much negativity in the news, I feel that the real science behind gender identity has gotten much better in recent years and that's ultimately going to be a good thing for all of us.
ReplyDeleteI had never taken the test, and I just did so, out of curiosity. The results are not as strong in favoring my status as a "transsexual," but they don't really matter, after having lived full-time as a woman for the past seven years. Intellectually, I could have ascertained the correct answers to most of the questions, and my results would, most certainly, have been more decisive. Some of the questions (and answer selections) seem to be outdated now, anyway.
ReplyDelete