How Reliably Can Examiners Make Form Quality (FQ) Judgments in the Absence of the Form Quality (FQ) Tables?

Form Quality (FQ) scores are well-validated measures of the accuracy of perceptive processes, of reality testing, and of the severity of psychological disturbance. Research studies reveal that inter-rater reliability of FQ scoring is good when visualized objects are available in the FQ tables. However, many visualized objects are not found in the FQ tables so that scoring must rely on one’s individual judgment. Thus, a major question remains unsolved: How reliably can examiners make FQ judgments in the absence of the FQ tables? To address this question, we used the Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS) method. We asked 21 graduate students from our research labs to rate Form Accuracy (FA) and FQ for 86 objects from a subset of four Rorschach card (I, III, VI, and VIII). The results clearly reveal that FQ judgments made by individual examiners without using the FQ tables are not reliable. When scoring FQ, one should carefully scrutinize the empirically supported FQ tables and base the FQ score on these rather than personal judgments.