In 2004, I graduated at the University of Groningen on the interpretation of statistical results by psychological researchers. After that, I started my PhD project on “Reasoning in applied psychology” at the University of Twente. In this project I investigated psychologists’ diagnostic decision making processes in designing treatments. During my PhD project I started teaching tutorials for the first year psychology course Psychological Design and supervising Bachelor and Master students working on their theses. Currently, I am working as a researcher at the department Technical Medicine of the Faculty of Science and Technology and teaching two courses at Psychology.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Judgement and decision making; expertise and expertise development; diagnostic reasoning; treatment decisions and planning
PhD PROJECT (2005-2010)
The Decisive Moment: Making diagnostic decisions and designing treatments
Psychologists diagnostic decision making processes and their relationship with treatment decisions were investigated. Theoretical diagnostic models prescribe that the diagnostic process consists of two decision processes: classification and case formulation. These diagnostic decisions are used to form an integrated client model on which psychologists base their treatment decisions. However, in clinical practice, the complex and dynamic nature of the diagnostic tasks hampers an optimal performance. Thus far, it has remained unclear whether the prescribed diagnostic decisions are performed in clinical practice and determine treatment decisions. Two research questions were investigated in this thesis: 1) What characterizes the diagnostic decision making process in clinical practice? and 2) What is the role of the diagnostic decision making processes in designing treatments? In two studies the type of diagnostic decisions considered in the diagnostic process and the sequence of decisions was explored with different methods. In one study a questionnaire with a written case description was used and in the other an authentic diagnostic task (diagnostic interview with stimulated recall). In addition, in two studies it was examined to what extent the diagnostic decisions classification and case formulation are connected to psychologists treatment plans. The studies in this thesis show that psychologists diagnostic processes are adaptive and characterized by a focus on the clients complaints and symptoms and on treatment selection while they continuously shift between all diagnostic decisions and reconsider previous decisions. The decisions made in the diagnostic process contribute only slightly to treatment design.
Dissertation: The Decisive Moment [pdf]
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Groenier, M., Hulshof, C.D. & Wilhelm, P. (2010). Van beschrijvende naar verklarende diagnostiek: Hoe psychologen tot een diagnose komen. De Psycholoog, 45, 34-42.
Groenier, M. Pieters, J. M., Hulshof, C. D., Wilhelm, P. & Witteman, C. L. M. (2008). Psychologists’ judgements of diagnostic activities: Deviations from a theoretical model. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 15, 256-265. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cpp.587
OTHER
Mentale bezuinigingen slecht voor minima [kennislink]
Hoekstra, R., Kiers, H. A. L., Johnson, A. & Groenier, M. (2006). Problems when interpreting research results using only p-value and sample size. Paper presented at ICOTS-7, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. [pdf]
