Assessing current concerns and goals idiographically: A review of the Motivational Structure Questionnaire family of instruments

Abstract

Background There have been two kinds of methods for assessing individuals' motivation and their goal‐striving behavior. The idiographic method obtains respondents' individual descriptions of their behavior or inner experiences. The nomothetic approach uses a standardized questionnaire in which respondents select from a set of alternatives. Idiographic responses provide rich, individualized information, but they make comparisons across different individuals difficult. By contrast, the nomothetic approach loses valuable individualized information, but it readily lends itself to cross‐individual comparisons. Objective The present authors have developed a family of motivational assessment instruments within the framework of the Goal Theory of Current Concerns and individuals' goal pursuits. Each of these instruments is a hybrid version of the idiographic and nomothetic methods. Each one obtains individualized information about each respondent at the start of the assessment, but it then utilizes rating scales that allow comparisons across different individuals to be made. The objective of the present article is to present this family of hybridized instruments for potential use in routine outcome monitoring. Method The method used in this article was to review the development of this family of hybrid assessments instruments over the preceding decades and the research on their psychometric properties and clinical applications. These hybrid tools include the Interview Questionnaire, Work Concerns Inventory, Motivational Structure Questionnaire, and Personal Concerns Inventory and their variants. The review includes only the idiographic‐nomothetic approaches that are based on the Goal Theory of Current Concerns. Results The review reveals that for each instrument, motivational indices are calculated, which have been shown to be valid and reliable. Analyses have also revealed adaptive and maladaptive motivational factors. Conclusions The measures discussed here have proven useful in clinical applications, when, for example, they are used as components of Systematic Motivational Counseling and the Life Enhancement and Advancement Programme for helping individuals improve their motivational structure. Similarly, the measures hold promise for use in routine outcome monitoring.

Idiographic patient reported outcome measures (I‐PROMs) for routine outcome monitoring in psychological therapies: Position paper

“…Seven goal‐based I‐PROMs met criteria for inclusion (six developed for adults and one developed for work with children and young people). However, one of these, the Motivational Structure Questionnaire, can be considered a family of several discrete measures (see Cox & Klinger, 2021; Klinger & Cox, 2011). Lloyd et al (2019) categorized these goal‐based I‐PROMs into three types.…”

Goals Form: Reliability, validity, and clinical utility of an idiographic goal‐focused measure for routine outcome monitoring in psychotherapy

“…They found nine measures that fell into three discrete categories. First were multidimensional tools—such as Personal Project Analysis (PPA, Little, 1983 ) and the Motivational Structure Questionnaire (Cox & Klinger, 2021 )—that invite patients to establish goals through relatively structured processes, and then to rate them on a range of dimensions. Second was Goal Assessment Scaling (GAS, Kiresuk & Sherman, 1968 ), which invites patients to set out, and then rate, expected levels of outcomes on a set of identified goals.…”

Test–retest stability, convergent validity, and sensitivity to change for the Goal‐Based Outcome tool for adolescents: Analysis of data from a randomized controlled trial

“…Nomothetic measures are, due to their predefined nature, often simpler and quicker for individuals to complete, as well as being easier to interpret (Cox & Klinger, 2021 ). However, they also assume a shared understanding and interpretation of the meaning that individuals assign to items (Lloyd et al, 2019 ).…”