My Key-note address for Seminar on 'Research and Application of Checklist'

Good Morning

1.   Mr. Soumen Chatterji, Director, IIP, Kolkata, Mr. Amarnath Chatterji, chief manager, IIP, Kolkata, Dr. Rama Mallik, Head Department of Psychological Testing and Counselling, Prof. Anjali Ray, Ex-Professor, Department of Applied Psychology, CU and convener, Indian School Psychology Association,West Bengal, Dr. Rajarshi Neogi, Associate Professor, Dept. of Psychiatry, R.G.Kar Medical College and Hospital,  and distinguished guests and delegates of this one day seminar on 'Research and Application of checklist' . I deeply acknowledge the trust bestowed on me . Besides I acknowledge your immense and continuing contribution in spreading different measurement principles of Psychology through workshops, seminars and journals. I have long association with your institute since the era of Professor S. Chatterjee (the founder of the Institute) and Professor Manjula Mukerjee. I am privileged getting their continuous support on my research activities in the Indian Statistical Institute. 

2. I belong to the Psychology Research Unit of the Indian Statistical Institute, the institute of National Importance. The Unit is engaged in development of different psychometric tools for collection and assessment of complex multi-dimensional psychological data and in development of theory. Checklist is one of the psychometric tools. 


3. I have divided my key note speech into three sections – myth about checklist, my research on application of checklist and my activities as state secretary of InSPA. My intention is to minimize the errors and maximizing strength of checklist.

4. One major myth is checklist is hypothesis testing data coolection tool so checklist can not be costructed after data collection. I personally collected large number of drawing from the tribal children living in the forests of Tripura. In my picture drawing test, I constructed checklist and tested its inter rater reliability. In another research  on archive data of psychiatric disorders, I have shown how checklist can be used in data mining when data are random and non-hypothetical. Second myth is checklist is only for data collection. This is not true as Checklist is important for risk management. It prevents the user from major danger. For example, in surgery, checklist is used to improve safety surgery and to reduce death and complications for the surgery. World health Organization has introduced surgical safety checklist in November,2010.  The third myth is checklist is unnecessary as human memory is sufficient. Keep in mind that human memory has 
some potential limitations. And in danger, human memory is seriously distracted. Therefore, checklist acts as aid to reduce memory pressure and it prevents from memory distraction. Finally, it organizes our cognitive factors to achieve the goal systematically and safely. Checklist  helps to ensure consistency and completeness in carrying out a task. There are large number of psychiatric disorders in which clinical observation is recorded in the checklist. Later on degree of severity and prognosis are estimated by matching with the norm. One example is Mini Mental Status Examination test or (MMSE). Checklist is useful instrument for diagnosis of some pervasive developmental disorders like autism.  Before construction of any psychological test or questionnaire, domain wise behavior sampling is important in order to design the instrument. Checklist can be used to explore the items. In behavioural training, trainers use checklist.  Researchers involved  in action research can use checklist in school psychology.

5.  I used checklist for research purposes in 1998 in order to develop computer algorithms for construction of aptitude test battery. I published few researches in the journal. Some are - Ranking General aptitudes for success in computer programming,  Aptitude Importance Profile Similarity of Computer Programmers Across Different Organizations, Computer programming job analysis, What do computer programmers want for job satisfaction. Dr.Rama Manna was co-author of my first paper. In this study, I collected data through checklist. Later I developed checklist after data collection. First one is for Development of picture drawing test to assess consciousness layers of tribal children of Tripura. And the second one is to map association of Psychiatric complaints and the diagnostic classification. Today, in my presentation, I will show my researches.

It is nice to note that Indian School Psychology Association has been kindly agreed to be associated with this seminar. As Secretary for the State convener of InSPA, I am requesting you to be the member of InSPA. Here the word school covers any academic institution not the institution for children only.

6.  West Bengal chapter of InSPA is very dynamic and actively engaged in knowledge dissemination being associated with Workshop, Conference etc. The central body of InSPA under the leadership of Professor Panch Ramalingam regularly conducted conferences at the National and International levels. 7^th International Conference will be held in November at Mysore in this year.

7. I strongly believe that all the speakers will enlighten you different thoughts about research and application of checklist from different perspectives.

Thank you.  

http://isacabangalore.org/isacabc/main/media/downloads/2011conf/10inauguralspeech.pdf