The Netherlands Institute of Psychiatry and Psychology (NIFP) is leading a European Union funded two-year project called VERA-PRO2EU.

In this project we will examine the psychometric properties of the VERA-2R.

Background

Risk assessments play a significant role in terms of combatting violent extremism and terrorism. Therefore, it is important that the risk assessment tools for ideologically motivated violence provide reliable and valid estimates.

Reliability pertains to the extent to which a measurement is stable, consistent, predictable, accurate and free from random error. Validity concerns the extent to which an instrument measures what it purports to measure.

Despite the importance of validation, due to the relative dearth of thorough scientific research, there remains scarce knowledge about the reliability and validity of risk assessment instruments. With respect to the VERA-2R, among professionals a positive consensus has been established concerning both its face validity and content validity. Face validity refers to the degree to which an instrument creates the impression that it encompasses the entirety of the concept that it claims to measure, while content validity can be defined as the degree to which an instrument adequately represents all the relevant facets of a given construct. Furthermore, the interrater reliability of the VERA-2R is recently established. For both the indicators as the structured risk judgements good to excellent interrater reliability was demonstrated, which indicates that different assessors generally score the same ratings for the feature that is being observed or measured. This is an important finding, since individual risk assessments should be independent of the raters or professional assessors.

Current validation project

In order to determine whether the VERA-2R is able to provide reliable and valid estimates, an extensive validation project will be carried out in which we will investigate the following psychometric properties:

  1. Test-retest reliability: Test-retest reliability measures the consistency of the scores of a stable construct obtained from the same person on two or more separate occasions.
  2. Discriminative validity: Discriminative validity refers to the degree to which the evaluated test discriminates between groups that are known and expected to be different from each other.
  3. Divergent validity: Divergent validity is demonstrated by evidence that measures of constructs that theoretically should not be highly related to each other are, in fact, not found to be highly correlated to each other.
  4. Content validity: Content validity refers to the degree to which an instrument represents all facets of a certain construct and whether these are extensive and representative.
  5. Predictive validity: Predictive validity refers to the extent to which scores on a measurement are able to accurately predict future risk behavior.

Future objectives

When more is known about the psychometric properties of the VERA-2R,  well-founded recommendations can be made on how to improve the VERA-2R. In turn this will lead to more accurate risk assessments and risk management strategies, and, most importantly, a safer society.