OM book glossary

This is the glossary for the book “Outcome measures and evaluation in counselling and psychotherapy” written by myself and Jo-anne Carlyle and available now from SAGE. I am over 430 entries now and still climbing though now (April 2026) I am concentrating more on harmonising, cleaning up and cross-linking existing entries than I am on adding new ones. Some glossary entries link to more detailed expansions of the topic in my Rblog and, at last, an increasing number now link with interactive online (“shiny”) apps.

You can see the alphabetical list of entries below which is a good place to browse, or you can use this search box.

Beware if you are searching, the way that the plugin orders the matches is to my mind bizarre so scroll down if what you typed isn’t first on the list, you may find something with exactly the word or phrase you typed in to find is hidden further down the list of suggestions. As of 29.ix.26 the plugin authors are aware and working on this.

As to the content, if a topic you want is not there and you think it should be, contact me and tell me and I will put it on the (long!) list of entries to be added!

F

F-measure

Also known as the "positive specific agreement" measure. Details In our field you are likely to…

Face validity

This expands the summary entry under validity. It's probably best to read the whole…

Factor analysis

Factor Analyses (FA) are a set of techniques that allows us to look in more…

Factor scores

I haven't come across these for years now so this is going to be a…

Factor structure

A term that used to be used a lot in reporting psychometric explorations of self-report…

False discovery rate

This relates to the "multiple tests problem/issue": if you do multiple statistical tests in the…

False negative (in screening)

When a screening test scores negative, i.e. below some cutting point, but the person does…

False negative rate/risk (inferential testing)

Same as the "Type II error rate", i.e. the risk that a statistical test will…

False positive (in screening)

When a screening test scores positive, above some cutting point, but the person does not…

False positive rate/risk (inferential testing)

Same as the "Type I error rate": the risk of a statistical test rejecting the…

More

Creation date lost, last updated 19.ix.26. Author CE; this page and all glossary contents are copyright to me so contact me if you want to quote from them (I’m sure I’ll agree!). That may change to a Creative Commons licence later when I am happier with the content.