Q-interactive

As an Educational Psychologist I access a range of skills to carry out the work requested from parents, schools and professionals. Often, I utilise a mix of assessment tools, interviews and observations which help with our consultations and formulating interventions with schools, young people, adults and our partners.

QI supports us in terms of the ease of use to administer the assessments, as we have all the information required to administer the assessments on the iPads, the ease of scoring and the interpretive reports help to ensure our work is of a high quality. As a Principal Educational Psychologist probably the key motivation for using QI is how simple it is to use!

There are many benefits to using QI. Over the years the ‘hard copies’ of the test equipment has led to the wear and tear, damage to equipment and we have an increasing emphasis to move to a paperless work place. It is also noteworthy to add that often with some assessments it can be that we have to focus on the logistics of administration of ‘the assessment and not the client with paper driven assessments which can be cumbersome to use in comparison to the iPad. QI assessments flow seamlessly without the need to plan in detail all the assessment with hard copies.

There are online tutorials but the program is logical so easy to set up without much effort. Also the telephone support, when there is a rare glitch, is always very helpful and one rarely has to wait to speak to someone who can also offer a solution. In a work context we have found it easier to sit with a colleague and set the iPad up with them as this is much quicker than leaving the person to do this on their own. Often the programme is up and running with a new set up within 40 minutes if not less.

We always do a few practice assessments when new tests are developed but once the assessment has been set up and trailed there are rarely (if ever) any problems. Initially when I first started to use the iPad’s there was an anxiety that they would not work but in the years of use there has never been an occasion when they have not worked…even working in a remote area with no Wi-Fi for example. The set up for assessment, the sync with the desktop Q-interactive site and downloaded the interpretive reports always works with no difficulties.

I probably do not use the assessment within the realms of flexibility that they can be used. The ease by which we can present assessments and now compare some tests with other via QI is extensive and no doubt as the need arises so I will make use of the flexibility by which we can administer these assessments.

Absolutely, as the effort of scoring is done for you which makes assessment scoring effortless. In addition, some of the interpretative statistical analysis helps to inform the interpretation of the tests subtests and scales which provides ease of analysis for report writing and feedback to the client

The QI report with the WISC-V, for example, is comprehensive, detailed and provided a wealth of information which helps to validate ones interpretations and observations. For discussions with professions these reports are helpful to raise questions and undertake detailed analysis of assessments and the rigour of our debate with regards relevant interventions for the clients is refined and backed up thorough normative assessments.

Clients are accustomed to using electronic equipment and even at a young age. A recent example was a complex child with ADHD and behavioural difficulties who had not engaged with two past assessments (which were paper / hard copy IQ tests), but with the iPad he compiled and completed the entire assessment. This assessment confirmed that he is cognitively very able and it was worrying that staff wished him to be placed in a school for children with significant learning difficulties prior to his engagement with QI based assessments.

No hesitation in recommending this assessment with QI given the ease of administration and the value they add to one’s professional tools

In the context in which we work where many services are actively encouraging agile and mobile working, the use of technology to ensure that we can carry out to professional role means that QI will be an essential feature of our working toolkit. I can strongly recommend the use of QI as a Psychologist.

We are a specialist interdisciplinary community neurorehabiliation team for children and young people affected by brain injury either through accident or illness. In the team we have clinical psychologists, educational psychologists and neuropsychologists as well as other disciplines such as occupational therapy, speech and language and neurology. A part of our work is providing neuropsychological assessment in order to understand the needs of young people following a brain injury so that we can develop a collaborative goal-based rehabilitation program.

It has been a leap forward for us to have Q-interactive. The children and young people have thus far responded well to the digital format of assessment. Q-interactive has also saved us a lot of time in terms of scoring the results since the scores are automatically loaded as the assessment is administered. The time saving has been one of the biggest advantages of switching to Q-interactive. We have had good support from Pearson in terms of technical matters, although they have generally been few and far between.