Responsible Test Use: Case Studies for Assessing Human Behavior

Test use is ubiquitous in contemporary society; likewise, test misuse cuts across many fields, applications, and types of tests. Test misuse can be substantially reduced through training in test policy, selection, administration, scoring, interpretation, and reporting.

Responsible Test Use: Case Studies for Assessing Human Behavior, Second Edition is an interdisciplinary reference source for promoting quality assurance in testing. It consists of 85 training cases that illustrate a variety of problems related to test use. Twenty-eight of the cases are new for this edition.

Each case is drawn from real life and includes

• a description of the incident
• focus questions to encourage active involvement with issues raised by the case
• an analysis of the problems posed plus possible ways of better handling the situation
• a listing of empirically-derived dimensions of test misuse that are likely to generalize to new testing situations

Cases developed for this edition represent three test settings that were not covered in the previous edition: computer and internet testing formats, forensic, and cross cultural-English language learners. In addition, revised cases cover counseling and training, education, employment, mental health, neuropsychology, and speech-language-hearing settings.

This book is intended for use as a supplementary textbook in undergraduate and graduate measurement courses and for trainers of specialized assessment practitioners, such as school psychologists and educational diagnosticians. It can also serve as a valuable tool for in-service training or continuing education, for licensing exam preparation, and as a resource for other individuals committed to improving assessment practices.

Lorraine D. Eyde, PhD, is a personnel research psychologist at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, where she has been employed since 1971. She holds a diplomate in industrial-organizational psychology, ABPP, and is a fellow of four divisions of the American Psychological Association (APA): Psychologists in Public Service (Division 18); Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics (Division 5); Society for the Psychology of Women (Division 35); and Society of Counseling Psychology (Division 17). She is licensed to practice psychology in the District of Columbia. She has been a Visiting Mellon Fellow at Tufts University and received APA's Committee on Women in Psychology citation for Distinguished Leader for Women in Psychology. She is a charter fellow of the American Psychological Society, served on its Board of Directors, and is a member of Sigma Xi. Dr. Eyde has more than 40 publications, including a special journal issue on computerized testing, and was an associate editor of a casebook on ethics; her publications have been cited in more than 140 sources. She has made more than 60 presentations at APA's annual convention or other conventions or conferences, including four International Congresses of Psychology. Her areas of expertise include leadership, job analysis, testing individuals with disabilities, test misuse, and ethics. Dr. Eyde helped to organize the Joint Committee on Testing Practices and chaired the 4-year interdisciplinary research project of the Test User Qualifications Working Group and the Test User Training Work Group. She has served on APA's Membership Committee, Board of Professional Affairs, and Psychological Assessment Work Group, and she served on APA's Task Force to Revise APA's Ethical Principles in the Conduct of Research With Human Participants.

Gary J. Robertson, PhD, is a research psychologist specializing in the development of educational and psychological tests. He holds a PhD in educational and psychological measurement from Columbia University. Over the course of his career, he has managed the development of many group and individually administered tests published by Harcourt Brace and The Psychological Corporation (now NCS Pearson); American Guidance Service, Inc. (now NCS Pearson); and Wide Range, Inc. (now Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc.). Among these are the widely used Otis-Lennon School Ability Test, Metropolitan Readiness Tests, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement, Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, and the Harrington-O'Shea Career Decision Making System. Dr. Robertson is coauthor of the Wide Range Achievement Test 4 (WRAT 4) and author of the Wide Range Achievement Test--Expanded. His professional interests are test scaling and norming, the history and development of standardized testing, intellectual assessment, assessing test user qualifications, and promoting the proper use of standardized tests and assessments. He has served as the APA representative to the Joint Committee on Testing Practices and as a member of two of its working groups: the Test User Qualifications Working Group and the Test User Training Working Group. A fellow of APA Division 5 (Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics), Dr. Robertson has served in various capacities on the Division 5 Executive Committee as well as on the Executive Committee of the Association for Assessment in Counseling of the American Counseling Association.

Samuel E. Krug, PhD, received both his MA and PhD in psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is currently chairman and CEO of MetriTech, Inc., an educational testing company that works primarily with large-scale state testing programs, and president of Industrial Psychology International, a testing company that produces tests primarily for hiring and selection. He is an adjunct professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois. He has published more than 100 articles, books, and tests, including four editions of Psychware Sourcebook: A Reference Guide to Computer-Based Products for Assessment in Psychology, Business, and Education. His articles and books all relate to issues in applied personality assessment and educational measurement. He is a fellow of APA and the American Educational Research Association.