Association for Behavior Analysis International

A major impediment to outcome research on the action and effect of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is the lack of valid and reliable measures on the primary constructs, including valued living. The Valued Living Questionnaire (VLQ; Wilson, Sandoz, Kitchens, & Roberts, 2010) was designed as a clinical tool, but is being increasingly used in research protocols. This symposium consists of three presentations regarding various psychometric issues of the VLQ. First, researchers must define the best method of scoring the VLQ to yield the most valid data. As such, the first paper reviews common scoring methods and the relation to common dependent variables. The second paper presents potential variations of the VLQ for specific populations, as the original VLQ contains domains which may not pertain to all samples. Finally, the third paper presents an attempt at gaining normative data among a distressed sample. Continuing work in this area will help to refine the VLQ and improve the quality of process research in this area.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT; Hayes, Stroshahl, & Wilson, 1999) is an empirically-based approach to therapy which posits that when ones life consists of value-congruent behavior, there is less psychological distress. A major impediment to outcome research is the lack of valid and reliable measures on the primary constructs, including valued living. The Valued Living Questionnaire (VLQ; Wilson, Sandoz, Kitchens, & Roberts, 2010) is an early attempt to measure valued living. One psychometric concern of the measure appears to be the effect of value domains which individuals are not currently engaged. We hypothesize that the domains of parenting and occupation have inflated error variance among younger populations. Removing these items should increase construct and convergent validity. Participants (N = 143; ages 17 to 25) completed the VLQ, POMS, BDI, and BAI. Using the difference scoring method, the 10-item and 8-item VLQ was correlated to the BDI (r= -.225 and = -.84, respectively). In addition, convergent validity improved, in that the 8-item was more highly correlated with the Bulls-Eye (r=.34). The relationships to other measures were similar. Current studies are specifically examining the effect of being employed and being a parent on the measurement variance.

The Valued Living Questionnaire (Wilson, et al., 2010) is a clinical tool used in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT; Hayes, Stroshl, & Wilson, 1999) that provides guidance to clinicians regarding clients valued living. However, for researchers, it is becoming increasingly important to investigate and gather empirical data regarding valued living. Since the VLQ was not initially designed to serve this role, we must now work to evaluate the scoring methods and psychometric properties of the VLQ. In addition, for researchers, it would be greatly beneficial to have data concerning how the measure relates to clinical levels of psychological distress. In the current study, 143 college students completed the VLQ, BDI, BAI and POMS. We compared the outcomes using the composite scoring method (10 and 8-item version) (Wilson, et al, 2010), a difference score (10 and 8-item version) (Rost, 2010), and simply the behavioral concordance score. Results indicate that the difference scoring method (8-item) may be more effective at identifying psychological distress. Based upon the difference scores, results indicate that the numerical points of <12 and >28 represent clinical differences. Further work should investigate age-related differences and continue to explore the potential utility of these criterion scores.