The goal in all my research activities is to understand all aspects of the psychodiagnostic decision making process. Subjects in my studies are pracitioners in special education, in clinical (child) psychology, in psychiatry, and in general medicine – in this order of priority. I address questions such as: how do clinicians understand their clients’ situation? How do they classify the complaints? Which diagnostic tests do they perform, and how do they decide upon these? How do they construct a causal explanation of the problem, and what is the role of such a causal explanation? I also study individual differences in efficiency of the diagnostic decision process and in correctness of the results, and differences in preferences for intuitive or analytical decision making and the consequences thereof for diagnostic decisions. Another topic is the difference between mental health and medical clinicians, and, within mental health clinicians, between psychologists and psychiatrists, in the diagnostic decision process.
I also study differences in diagnostic performance between novice, intermediate and very experienced clincians.
With the Diagnostic Decision Making research group we carry out research into the cognitive behaviour of the diagnostic decision maker.