The Committee on Psychological Tests and Assessment
(CPTA)i encourages the education of undergraduate and graduate
psychology students in the appropriate and ethical use of psychological tests
and assessment instruments. Such education must be consistent with the Standards
for Educational and Psychological Testing, (AERA/APA/NCME, 2014) and
the Ethical Principles of
Psychologists, (APA, 2002) as well as guidelines and procedures for
test use and security provided by test developers and publishers.
The purpose of this statement is to address issues of test security in the
context of teaching and training of students in psychology. It is intended to
guide professionals who use secure psychological tests in education only with
regard to those areas in which they can exercise control of access to test
materials.
Security of Test Materials
It should be recognized that certain tests used by
psychologists and related professionals may suffer irreparable harm to their
validity if their items, scoring keys or protocols, and other materials are
publicly disclosed. Examples include tests such as graduate school admission or
college entrance examinations or tests of cognitive function. Access to
psychological test materials (e.g., test booklets, protocols, administration
manuals, scoring keys) should be granted only to qualified psychologists or
other professionals who use the material in their teaching, research or
clinical practice. Students who use the materials in the course of their
research or training should be directly supervised by a psychologist or other
appropriate supervisor. For example, when testing materials are stored in a
library, access should be limited to appropriate personnel and to students in
training. Test materials sold for the purposes of student training must not be
available to the casual purchaser in college and university bookstores.
Preferably, such materials should be distributed through an arranged venue such
as from the test publisher directly. University or college psychology or other
administrative departments and professors must store all psychological test
materials under conditions that prevent access by unauthorized individuals.
Psychologists who maintain test materials for teaching or research purposes
should be aware of the importance of protecting such documents, and should be
familiar with the issues surrounding their security.
Testing Demonstrations
It is entirely appropriate to demonstrate testing
materials and procedures in undergraduate courses such as general psychology or
personality theory. In this situation, simulated test items should be used to
demonstrate any given device or technique. For example, instructors may make
their own inkblots or invent "similarities" items to illustrate the
content, administration or scoring of a test. Alternatively, a film or video
may be used to illustrate administration, without revealing or compromising the
security of the stimulus materials or scoring. When students are administered a
psychological test for demonstration purposes in an upper division
undergraduate or graduate course, the instructor has the same responsibilities
as though the test were administered for its regularly-intended purpose.
Teaching Students to Administer and Score Tests
Before students administer any kind of psychological
test, they should have completed appropriate prerequisite coursework in tests
and measurements, statistics and psychometrics, and they should be thoroughly
trained in the proper administration of the specific test being used. It is
advisable that the students be supervised in practice and initial
administrations, as well as in scoring of responses and deriving
interpretations. It is inappropriate for students to administer tests in an
environment that does not allow for a controlled, private and standardized
presentation. Communicating the results of a test to a test-taker is a serious
matter in any circumstance. Results or interpretations should be reported by
students only under the supervision of a qualified faculty member or
supervisor. Students should be thoroughly trained in appropriate language and
procedures to report all types and levels of scores.
Using Tests in Research
The use of tests in psychological research is bound
by the ethics that apply to research with human participants. Issues such as
the necessity of informed consent, the nature and extent of debriefing,
including feedback of test results, and the disguised use of test materials,
must be addressed on a case-by-case basis with due attention to the protection
of the participants and the integrity of the test. Unauthorized modification of
a published or unpublished test for a research project is a violation of the publisher’s
or author’s copyright, and is thus both unethical and illegal. As with tests
used in training, when tests are used by students in their research, the
faculty supervisor bears the responsibility for assuring appropriate testing
practices. Security of test materials, confidentiality of records, standardized
administration and appropriate methods of score reporting must be maintained as
in any other testing situation.
Universities, College
Students and Mental Health
With the recent tragedy allegedly perpetrated by
suspended college student Jared Loughner in Tuscon, AZ, the role of colleges’
and universities’ student counselling centres has taken center stage. This is a
little odd, given that Mr. Loughery attended a community college that lacked a student
counselling center. Most community colleges — catering to part-time students
who often have families or hold down full-time jobs — don’t seem to have the
mental health counselling centres that most traditional universities and
colleges have.
Dr. Emily Gibson, a family physician who apparently
works with students at a college, recently wrote a blog entry about mental
illness in the college student. In this entry, she seems to bemoan the fact
that students have come to expect a certain level of psychiatric care and
treatment for their mental health concerns — even while at college. Of course,
universities have limited resources to offer such care.
Universities are traditionally very campus-oriented.
What happens on-campus is our problem. What happens off-campus is none of our
concern. By having a purposely myopic view of the world, most universities and
colleges can pretend that they’re not a part of a community — they are
the community.
This benefits most colleges because then they don’t
have to deal with larger community issues (such as growth within the town,
economic development, care of others within the community, etc.). Sure, they
pay lip service to being a part of a community, but having grown up in a
college town, it seems that many colleges have a shallow appreciation for the
symbiotic nature between college and town.
So when it comes to their students, universities are
pretty straightforward — you’re our problem when you’re paying tuition. The
minute you stop paying tuition, you’re no longer our problem.
Although it may seem a little heartless, we have to
keep in mind that even non-profit colleges and universities are big businesses.
They may not make a “profit,” but they are still run like any corporation that
takes in hundreds of millions (or even billions) of dollars. A business must be
run efficiently, and so anything that doesn’t directly have to do with
educating others is an expense. Keeping expenses down is the goal of any
business.
Now, of course, the therapists and psychiatrists who
work at student counseling centers don’t care about any of this. They will help
a student as much as they can, even going above and beyond whatever traditional
resources they may have available. But there’s one thing they can’t do —
continue to treat or counsel a person who’s no longer a student (e.g., a
customer of the university’s services).
The apparent problem with Jared Loughner was that he
was primarily categorized as a criminal problem, not a mental health concern.
Despite his odd outbursts and nonsensical questions, nobody at the school
seemed to think this was a mental health issue. Instead, the police were
called. Again and again.
Nobody apparently thought to order a psychiatric
evaluation, which the police can do very easily in most states.
So the answer to the second question is that any
mental health professional or police officer can compel a psychiatric
evaluation if they have reason to suspect the person may be a potential harm to
themselves or others. And in this case, from all the media reports, it appears
there were professors at the school who felt threatened (and in harm’s way) of
Loughner.
Why the police didn’t take these threats seriously
remains a big question mark. (Perhaps because they were campus policy? They
weren’t properly trained in assessing risk? We don’t know.) Had the police
ordered a psychiatric evaluation for Loughner, he may have caught the attention
of mental health professionals who could have recognized the danger. Or perhaps
not — a psychiatric evaluation may just as easily resulted in little change in
Loughner’s plans or behaviors. It didn’t much help in Seung-Hui Cho’s case, the
Virginia Tech shooter who killed 32 people.
The fact that some university counselling
professionals seem to complain about the increasingly complex psychiatric needs
of students attending their school seems to me to be pointing a finger of blame
at the wrong side. Why wouldn’t students expect a certain level of mental
health care while at school? They certainly expect a certain level of security
and health care — why should mental health care be any different? And if mental
health care needs are increasing, why wouldn’t a school properly plan for these
increases and cater to the needs of their students?
After all, a school is there to provide education
services to students. Isn’t learning about yourself and developing a coherent
and stable personality a part of the learning process of life?
Rather than offer increased mental health services,
I suspect some colleges and universities will go in the other direction —
increased screening for mental health concerns prior to admissions. Any red
flags on such screenings will be used (at least informally) to deny admission
to the student, reducing the college’s liability in the future. Because that
path is far easier and less expensive than catering to the complex mental
health needs of your students.
How a
psychological assessment will help
Every student is unique. An assessment of his abilities will help him understand his true calling. If his logical and reasoning abilities are good, he can go into science. If its numbers, then commerce, if it's management, he can try for that and so on. The college can encourage the student by helping him decide his branch through these tests.
Excluding a child because his tests show he's not motivated enough will only demotivate him further. We don't know what his life has been like and so we cannot judge him based on that. But we can make sure that whatever he does from now on, he will do whole-heartedly.
Every student is unique. An assessment of his abilities will help him understand his true calling. If his logical and reasoning abilities are good, he can go into science. If its numbers, then commerce, if it's management, he can try for that and so on. The college can encourage the student by helping him decide his branch through these tests.
Excluding a child because his tests show he's not motivated enough will only demotivate him further. We don't know what his life has been like and so we cannot judge him based on that. But we can make sure that whatever he does from now on, he will do whole-heartedly.
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