Evaluators’ reliability in the Family Apperception Test (FAT)

Abstract

The Family Apperception Test (FAT) is a projective technique, which evaluates the family functioning, and structuring process based upon the respondent’s answers. Including 21 pictures of family scenes, the test proposes the subject to tell a story about each of them. This study has intended to research evaluators’ reliability on this instrument. One hundred and sixty children and adolescents attending public and private schools at Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre cities (Brazil) took part of the study. The instruments have included a Socio-demographic data sheet, Raven’s Progressive Matrices Test, and FAT. The stories were tape-recorded, transcribed and submitted to the examination of three judges. The agreement degree assessed through Kappa statistics was satisfactory, being almost perfect in most categories. The three judges have agreed in their evaluations, demonstrating the answer categorization system is solid, allowing the qualification of the instrument psychometric properties.