Online Assessment of Neuropsychological Tests: Is it Reliable?

Abstract

This study investigates whether an online neuropsychological assessment can be reliable. In the current study, healthy individuals conducted a series of paper-and-pencil neuropsychological tests that were converted to a computerized counterpart. The aim of this study was to find out whether online testing is reliable. To this aim the following research questions were answered: 1) Do people correctly follow the test instructions for the different online tests; and is this affected by the online presence of a researcher? 2.)What is the test-retest reliability of online neuropsychological tests? 3) Do people perform better on online tests when a researcher is present via a video call than when no researcher is present? This study consists of 7 neuropsychological tests: Line Bisection Task, Corsi Block Tapping Task, Star Cancellation, Digit Span, Simon Task, Greyscales Task, and Tower of London. The comparable test performance with or without a present researcher indicates that healthy participants don’t profit by a test leader in online neuropsychological assessment. In the current study, the test-retest reliability of the used tests was moderate and must be improved. In general, online assessment like the one that is carried out in the current study, is in an early stage of development. Many factors must be improved before implementation in clinical settings is justified. Despite the aforementioned important shortcomings and imperfections at this stage, we’ve seen many upsides of online research that one day could contribute to, or even revolutionize neuropsychological assessment.