dr. M.C.S. (Muirne) Paap

SEALS project (2024-2028)

I am co-investigator in the "Screening early and adaptively for language skills" (SEALS) project, which is supported by a grant (€648 000) awarded by the Research Council of Norway to professor Johan Braeken at the University of Oslo. The goal of the project is to provide a solid methodological toolkit that facilitates the evaluation and development of progressive tests in a more systematic manner, in order to support the work of practitioners in the field of education, school psychology, and special needs who conduct diagnostic screenings for developmental delays with children. Progressive tests are characterized by an increasing difficulty of items being presented to the child, as well as a stopping rule that determines when the test administration should be stopped (e.g., after 4 consecutive errors). More often than not, it is unclear how such stopping rules were developed. In this project, we evaluate the impact of various types of stopping rules on the estimated ability scores, and develop methods that can be used to optimize stopping rules for specific assessment goals. More information can be found on the project website.

PersoniCAT project (2019-2022)

In December 2018, I was awarded a personal grant  (€800 000; type FRIPRO) by the Research Council of Norway for the project  "Supporting specialized psychiatric care in remote areas: A computer adaptive diagnostic interview for personality pathology" (PersoniCAT) . This project has now been succesfully concluded.

The goal of this project was to develop an adaptive instrument for assessing personality disorders. Members of the project group were: Aleksander Heltne (PhD student), Dr Niek Frans (postdoc), Dr Benjamin Hummelen, Dr Sara Germans Selvik, Prof. Johan Braeken, Prof. Bernard Veldkamp, and myself as project leader. Click here for a description of the project.

PhD students

• Antje Janshen (2024-2028). Topic: Grief as a trans-situational process – Phenomenology, assessment, and intervention.
• dr. Aleksander Heltne (thesis defended in 2024). Thesis title: Personality Disorders on the Spectrum: An examination of how the dimensional model for personality disorders may change PD assessment in clinical practice.
• dr. Sabrina Soe-Agnie (thesis defended in 2022). Thesis title: The externalizing spectrum model: transdiagnostic assessment of externalizing disordersin addiction care and forensic psychiatry.
• dr. Marleen Wessels (thesis defended in 2021). Thesis title: Looking at possibilities: research into assessment of people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities.
  
  

Collaboration

• Dutch-Flemish PROMIS group
• Helse Nord Trøndelag, Norway
• Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo, Norway
• Division of Psychosocial Research and Epidemiology, Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• Research group for personality disorders, Oslo University Hospital, Norway
• Regional Kompetansetjeneste for rehabilitering i Helse Sørøst, Sunnaas Sykehus HF, Norway
• Institute for Social Medicine, Epidemiology and Health, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany
• The EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• Department of Research Methodology, Measurement, and Data-Analysis, University of Twente, The Netherlands
• Centre of Educational Measurement at the University of Oslo (CEMO), University of Oslo, Norway
• University of Birmingham, UK
• Harvard Medical School, USA