delineate the population for which it was intended and the population to which the instrument was normed.
Several developmental issues will also be examined as will structural issues such as how the instrument was standardized, the various scales used within the test, and so forth. The utility of the test will also be explored. The final section of the paper will present a critical analysis of the test.
The MMPI-2: Description, Purpose, and Populations
The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory 2 (MMPI 2) instrument is the restandardized version of the original MMPI instrument which is commonly viewed as an empirically-based assessment of adult psychopathology (Newmark, 1996). The original authors of the test were: S. R. Hathaway, PhD, and J. C. McKinley, MD. The Restandardization Committee consisted of: James N. Butcher, PhD, W. Grant Dahlstrom, PhD, John R. Graham, PhD, Auke Tellegen, PhD, and Beverly Kaemmer, Coordinator for the University of Minnesota Press, the test's publisher. The date of publication of the MMPI-2 was 1989 (Newmark, 1996).
In terms of basic test details, Graham (1999) notes that the test requires a minimum reading level of the sixth grade, usually the level attained by 13 years of age. It takes approximately one hour to one and a half hours to complete the MMPI. The inventory test consists of 567 true-false items which are assessed in terms of 10 basic clinical scales, 7 validity scales, 15 Content Scales, 27 content component scales, 18 supplementary scales, 3 social introversion scales, 28 Harris-Lingoes subscales and 10 special or setting-specific indices. In other words, the test is lengthy and comprehensive in nature.
With respect to data report options, Butcher (2000) reports that the test provides several reporting options. These consist of: (1) a basic service profile report; (2) an extended score report; (3) The Minnesota Report TM: Adult Clinical System-Revised Interpr...