CHAPTER 2: HISTORICAL, CULTURAL,
AND LEGAL/ ETHICAL
CONSIDERATIONS
Discussants:
ACEDILLO, MIGUEL MILECIO EMIRICCO
GULTIANO, SHENAH
MAGSINO, LEANNE
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century
● Test and testing programs came into
being in China as early as 2200
BCE (DuBois, 1966, 1970)
○ The test examined
proficiency in subjects like
music, archery,
horsemanship, writing, and
arithmetic, as well as
agriculture, geography, civil
law, and military strategy.
● During the Song (or Sung)
Dynasty, which ran from 970 to
1279 CE, tests emphasized
knowledge of classical literature.
● In some dynasties, testing was
virtually suspended and government
positions were given to family
members or friends, or simply sold.
● In ancient Greco-Roman writings
indicative of attempts to categorize
people in terms of personality types.
● Psychological assessment in the
modern sense began to emerge
during the Renaissance.
● In 1859, Darwin published the book
On the Origin of Species by Means
of Natural Selection. In this book
Darwin argued that chance variation
in species would be selected or
rejected by nature according to
adaptivity and survival value.
● Galton (1869) aspired to classify
people "according to their natural
gifts" and to ascertain their
"deviation from an average"
○ Galton pioneered the use of
statistical concept central fo
psychological
experimentation and testing:
The coefficient of
correlation
○ In London 1884, Galton
displayed his
Anthropometric
Laboratory.
● Assessment was also an important
activity at the first experimental
psychology laboratory, founded at
the University of Leipzig in
Germantown by Wilhelm Max
Wundt
● Cattel coined the term mental test
in an 1890 publication.
○ In 1921, Cattel was
instrumental in founding the
Psychological Corporation.
The goal of the corporation
was the "Advancement of
psychology and the
promotion of the useful
application of psychology."
● Other students of Wundt at Leipzig
included Charles Spearman, Victor
Henri, Emil Kraepelin, EB Titchener,
Stanley Hall, and Lightner Witmer.
○ Spearman is credited with
originating the concept of test
reliability as well as building
the mathematical framework
for the statistical technique of
factor analysis.
○ Victor Henri is the
Frenchman who would
collaborate with Alfred Binet
on papers suggesting how
mental tests could be used to
measure higher mental
processes.
○ Psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin
was an early experimenter
 with the word association
technique as a formal test.
○ Lightner Witmer received
his Ph.D. from Leipzig and
went on to succeed Cattell as
director of the psychology
laboratory at the University of
Pennsylvania. Witmer has
been cited as the
“little-known founder of
clinical psychology”, owing at
least in part to his being
challenged to treat a “chronic
bad speller” in March of
1896. Later that year Witmer
founded the first
psychological clinic in the
United States at the
University of Pennsylvania.
In 1907 Witmer founded the
journal Psychological Clinic.
The first article in that journal
was entitled “Clinical
Psychology”)
The Twentieth Century
● Early 1900s was the birth of the first
formal tests of intelligence.
The Measurement of Intelligence
● In 1905, Binet and Theodore
Simon published a 30-item
"measuring scale of intelligence"
● In 1939 David Wechsler introduced
a test designed to measure adult
intelligence, the Welchsler-Bellevue
Intelligence Scale or the Wechsler
Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
The Measurement of Personality
● Personal Data Sheet developed by
Woodworth and his colleagues.
Woodworth developed the Personal
Data Sheet and called it
Woodworth Psychoneurotic
Inventory.
○ This instrument was the first
widely used self-report
measure of personality
● Projective test, a personality test
where an individual is assumed to
"project" onto some ambiguous
stimulus his or her own unique
needs, fears, hopes, and motivation.
CULTURE AND ASSESSMENT
Evolving Interest in Culture-Related
Issues
● Goddard (1913) used interpreters
in test administration, employed a
bilingual psychologist, and
administered mental tests to
selected immigrants who appeared
to have intellectual disability to
trained observers
● Culture-specific tests, or tests
designed for use with people from
one culture but not from another.
Some Issue Regarding Culture and
Assessment
● Communication between the
assessor and the assessee is a
most basic part of assessment
Verbal Communication
● The examiner and the examinee
must speak the same language
Nonverbal Communication and Behavior
● The messages conveyed by such
body language may be different from
culture to culture.
Standards of Evaluation
● Cultures differ from one another in
the extent to which they are
individualist or collectivist.
● Cultural differences carry with them
important implications for
assessment.
Test and Group Membership

Affirmative Action
● Refers to voluntary and mandatory
efforts undertaken by federal, state,
and local governments, probate
employers, and schools to combat
discrimination and to promote equal
opportunity for all in education and
employment
LEGAL AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATION
Laws
● Are the rules that individuals must
obey for the good of the society as a
whole.
Body of Ethics
● Is a body of principles of right,
proper, and good conduct.
Code of Professional Ethics
● Is recognized and accepted by
members of a profession, it defines
the standard of care expected of
members of that profession.
Standard of Care
● The level at which the average,
reasonable, and prudent
professional should provide
diagnostic of therapeutic services
under the same or similar conditions
The Concerns of the Public
Legislation
● In the 1970s numerous states
enacted minimum competency
testing programs. The Truth in
Testing Legislation was also passed
at the state level beginning in the
1980s.
Discrimination
● The practice of making distinctions
in hiring, promotion, or other
selection decisions that tend to
systematically favor members of a
majority group regardless of actual
qualifications for positions.
Reverse discrimination
● May be defined as the practice of
making distinctions in hiring,
promotion, or other selection
decisions that systematically tend to
favor members of a minority group
regardless of actual qualifications for
positions.
Disparate Treatment
● Refers to the consequences of an
employer's hiring or promotion
practice that was intentionally
devised to yield some discriminatory
result or outcome.
Disparate Impact
● Refers to the consequence of an
employer’s hiring or promotion
practice that unintentionally resulted
in a discriminatory result or outcome.
Litigation
● The court-mediated resolution of
legal matters of a civil, criminal or
administrative nature.
● Litigation has sometimes been
referred to as "judge-made law"
because it typically comes in the
form of a ruling by a court.
The Concerns of the Profession
TIMELINE:
- 1895 - The American Psychological
Association (APA), in its infancy,
formed its
first committee on mental
measurement. The committee was
charged with investigating various
aspects of the relatively new practice
of testing.
- 1906 - Another APA committee on
measurement was formed
- 1916 & 1921 - Symposia dealing
with various issues surrounding the
expanding uses of tests were
sponsored (Mentality Tests, 1916;
 Intelligence and Its Measurement,
1921).
- 1954 - APA published its Technical
Recommendations for Psychological
Tests and Diagnostic Tests, a
document that set forth testing
standards and technical
recommendations.
- 1955 - another professional
organization, the National
Educational Association (working in
collaboration with the National
Council on Measurements Used in
Education—now known as the
National Council on Measurement)
published its Technical
Recommendations for Achievement
Tests.
The APA and related professional
organizations in the United States have
made available numerous reference works
and publications designed to delineate
ethical, sound practice in the field of
psychological testing and assessment.
JUST THINK:
● Who should be privy to test data?
● Who should be able to purchase
psychological test materials?
● Who is qualified to administer, score,
and interpret psychological tests?
What level of expertise in
psychometrics qualifies someone to
administer which types of test?
1. Test-user qualifications
This report defined three levels of
tests in terms of the degree to which
the test’s use required knowledge of
testing and psychology.
Level A: Tests or aids that can
adequately be administered, scored,
and interpreted with the aid of the
manual and a general orientation to
the kind of institution or organization
in which one is working (for instance,
achievement or proficiency tests).
Level B: Tests or aids that require
some technical knowledge of test
construction and use and of
supporting psychological and
educational fields such as statistics,
individual
differences, psychology of
adjustment, personnel psychology,
and guidance (e.g., aptitude tests
and adjustment inventories
applicable to normal populations).
Level C: Tests and aids that require
substantial understanding of testing
and supporting
psychological fields together with
supervised experience in the use of
these devices (for
instance, projective tests, individual
mental tests).
2. Testing people with disabilities
Challenges analogous to those concerning
testtakers from linguistic and cultural
minorities are present when testing people
with disabling conditions.Specifically, these
challenges may include (1) transforming the
test into a form that can be taken by the
testtaker, (2) transforming the responses of
the testtaker so that they are scorable, and
(3) meaningfully interpreting the test data.
The nature of the transformation of the test
into a form ready for administration to the
individual with a disabling condition will, of
course, depend on the nature of the
disability.
“Death with Dignity” Legislation - a
request for assistance in dying may be
granted only contingent on the findings of a
psychological evaluation; life or death
literally hangs in the balance of such
assessments.
Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act (ODDA)
provides that a patient with a medical
condition thought to give that patient 6
months or less to live may end his or her
own life by voluntarily requesting a lethal
dose of medication.
The ODDA Assessment Process
(Farrenkopf and Bryan, 1999)
1. Review of Records and Case History
2. Consultation with Treating Professionals
3. Patient Interviews
4.Interviews with Family Members and
Significant Others
5. Assessment of Competence
6. Assessment of Psychopathology
7.Reporting Findings and
Recommendations
3. Computerized test administration,
scoring, and interpretation
Computer-assisted psychological
assessment (CAPA) has become more the
norm than the exception. An ever-growing
number of psychological tests can be
purchased on disc or administered and
scored online.
For assessment professionals, some major
issues with regard to CAPA are as follows.
● Access to test administration,
scoring, and interpretation software.
● Comparability of pencil-and-paper
and computerized versions of tests.
● The value of computerized test
interpretations.
● Unprofessional, unregulated
“psychological testing” online.
4. Guidelines with respect to certain
populations
In general, the guidelines are designed to
assist professionals in providing informed
and developmentally appropriate services.
Note that there exists a distinction between
APA guidelines and standards. Although
standards must be followed by all
psychologists, guidelines are more
aspirational in nature (Reed et al., 2002).
The Rights of Testtakers
1. The right of informed consent
Testtakers have a right to know why they
are being evaluated, how the test data will
be used, and what (if any) information will
be released to whom.
2. The right to be informed of test
findings
Testtakers have a right to be informed, in
language they can understand, of the nature
of the findings with respect to a test they
have taken. They are also entitled to know
what recommendations are being made as
a consequence of the test data.
3. The right to privacy and
confidentiality
The concept of the privacy right “recognizes
the freedom of the individual to pick and
choose for himself the time, circumstances,
and particularly the extent to which he
wishes to share or withhold from others his
attitudes, beliefs, behavior, and opinions”
(Shah, 1969, p. 57).
Confidentiality may be distinguished from
privilege in that, whereas “confidentiality
concerns matters of communication outside
the courtroom, privilege protects clients
from disclosure in judicial proceedings”
(Jagim et al., 1978, p. 459).
4. The right to the least stigmatizing
label
The Standards advise that the least
stigmatizing labels should always be
assigned when reporting test results.
- Insert story of jo ann
TYPES OF REFERRAL SETTINGS
Psychiatric Setting
● One of the main roles a psychiatrist
fills is administrator on a ward. Ward
administrators must frequently make
decisions about problems such as
suicide risk, admission/discharge,
and the suitability of a wide variety of
medical procedures. While retaining
ultimate decision-making
responsibility, psychiatrists often use
 information from other persons to
help with decisions.
General Medical Setting
● The typical areas of assessment
focus primarily on the presence of
possible intellectual deterioration in
areas such as memory, sequencing,
abstract reasoning, spatial
organization, and executive abilities
(Groth-Marnat, 2000b). Such
referrals, or at least screening for
neuropsychological deficit, typically
account for approximately one-third
of all psychological referrals in
psychiatric and medical settings. In
the past, neuropsychologists have
been asked to help determine
whether a patient’s complaints were
“functional” or “organic.” The focus
now is more on whether the person
has neuropsychological deficits that
may contribute to or account for
observed behavioral difficulties than
on either/or distinctions (Loenberger,
1989).
Legal Context
● The increasing use and acceptance
of psychologists in legal contexts
have resulted in a gradual
clarification of their roles (Goldstein,
2007; Otto & Heilburn, 2002) as well
as a proliferation of forensic specific
assessment instruments (Archer,
2006; Archer, Buffington-Vollum,
Stredny, & Handel, 2006; Heilbrun,
Marczyk, & Dematteo, 2002).
However, acclimatizing to the
courtroom environment is often
difficult for multiple reasons,
including the quite distinct
differences between courtrooms and
clinics, as well as the need to
become familiar with specialized
legal terms like diminished capacity
and insanity. In addition, many
attorneys are familiar with the same
professional literature that
psychologists read and may use this
information to discredit a Intelligence Scale for Children–V,
psychologist’s qualifications,
methods of assessment, or
conclusions (Ziskin & Faust, 2008).
Psychologists are also required to
become increasingly sophisticated in
their evaluation of possible
malingering and deception.
Academic/Educational Context
● Evaluating the nature and extent of a
child’s learning difficulties,
measuring intellectual strengths and
weaknesses, assessing behavioral
difficulties, creating an educational
plan, estimating a child’s
responsiveness to intervention, and
recommending changes in a child’s
program or placement (Sattler, 2008,
2014).
● Any educational plan should be
sensitive to the interactions among a
child’s abilities, diversity
considerations, the child’s
personality, the characteristics of the
teacher, and the needs and
expectations of the parents.
● Often there is an initial focus on, and
need to perceive, the student as a
“problem child” or “identified patient.”
This focus may obscure larger, more
complex, and yet more significant,
issues, such as marital conflict, a
disturbed teacher,
misunderstandings between teacher
and parents, or a conflict between
the school and the parents.
● All or some of the involved
individuals may have an investment
in perceiving the student as the
person with the problem, rather than
acknowledging that a disordered
school system or family difficulties
may be responsible. Wider contexts
should be considered, understood,
and addressed.
● Most assessments of children in a
school context include behavioral
observations, a test of intellectual
abilities such as the Weschsler
 Stanford Binet–V,
Woodcock-Johnson
Psychoeducational Battery–IV or
Kaufman Assessment Battery for
Children–II and tests of emotional
and behavioral functioning
● In the past, assessment of children’s
emotional functioning generally
relied on projective techniques.
However, many projective tests have
been found to have inadequate
psychometric properties and are
time-consuming to administer, score,
and interpret.
● As a result, a wide variety of
behavioral rating instruments have
begun to replace the use of
projective instruments. These
include the following:
○ Achenbach Child Behavior
Checklist
○ Conners–3 Parent and
Teacher Rating Scales
○ Behavior Assessment
System for Children–3
○ Personality Inventory for
Children–2
○ Vineland Adaptive Behavior
Scales–II
○ Wide Range Achievement
Test–IV
● Any report written for an educational
setting should focus not only on a
child’s weaknesses but also on his
or her strengths. Understanding a
child’s strengths can potentially be
used to increase a child’s
self-esteem as well as to create
change in a wide context.
● Recommendations can be
developed most effectively when the
clinician has a thorough
understanding of relevant resources
in the community, the school system,
and the classroom environment.
● Recommendations typically specify
which skills need to be learned, how
these can be learned, a hierarchy of
objectives, and possible techniques
for reducing behaviors that make
learning difficult.
● Recommendations for special
education should be made only
when a regular class would clearly
not be equally beneficial.
● The psychoeducational assessment
of children should be carried out in
two phases. The first phase should
assess the nature and quality of the
child’s learning environment.
● The second phase involves a
comprehensive assessment battery,
which includes measures of
intellectual abilities, academic skills,
adaptive behavior, and screening out
any biomedical disorders that might
disrupt learning.
● Wider context than merely the
interpretation of test scores.
Relationships among the teacher,
family, and student need to be
assessed, along with the relative
quality of the learning environment.
Furthermore, the child’s values,
motivation, and sense of personal
efficacy need to be taken into
consideration, along with possible
biomedical difficulties.
PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC
● In contrast to the medical, legal, and
educational institutions where the
psychologist typically serves as a
consultant to the decision maker, the
psychologist working in a
psychological clinic often is the
decision maker.
● A number of frequent types of
referrals come into the psychological
clinic. Perhaps the most common
ones are individuals who are
self-referred and are seeking relief
from psychological turmoil.
● For many of these individuals,
extensive psychological testing may
not be relevant and, in fact, may be
contraindicated, as their diagnoses
and issues may be relatively
straightforward and time spent in
testing could best be applied toward
treatment.
● There may be certain groups of
self-referred clients about whom the
psychologist may question whether
the treatment available in a
psychological clinic is appropriate.
These clients can include persons
with extensive medical problems,
individuals with legal complications
that need additional clarification, and
persons who may require higher
levels of care. In these cases, it
might be necessary to obtain
additional information through
psychological testing.
● The main purpose of the testing
would be to aid in decision making
rather than to serve as a direct
source of help for the client. Still
other clients in clinics who may
benefit from psychological testing
are those who are being seen in the
clinic already, either who have
unclear diagnoses or whose
treatment has stalled or plateaued.
These cases may benefit from the
clear guidance of a comprehensive
assessment.
● Two other situations in which
psychological assessment may be
warranted involve children who are
referred by their parents for school
or behavioral problems and referrals
from other decision makers. When
referrals are made for poor school
performance or involving legal
complications, special precautions
must be taken before testing.
● Primarily, the clinician must develop
a complete understanding of the
client’s social network and the basis
for the referral. This complete
understanding may include a history
of previous attempts at treatment
and a summary of the relationship
among the parents, school, courts,
and child.
● Sometimes psychologists are also
confronted with referrals from other
decision makers. For example, an
attorney may want to know if an
individual is competent to stand trial.
Other referrals may involve a
physician who wants to know
whether a patient with a head injury
can readjust to his or her work
environment or drive a car, the
physician may need to document
changes in a patient’s recovery.
● Psychologists must develop an
understanding of the complexity of
the client’s social setting, including
interpersonal factors, family
dynamics, and the sequence of
events leading to the referral.
● Psychologists, thus, should clearly
understand how the information they
give their referral source will be
used. It is essential for them to
appreciate that they have significant
responsibility, because decisions
made regarding their clients, which
are often based on assessment
results, can frequently be major
changing points in a client’s life.
● Clinicians should not merely
administer, score, and interpret tests
but should also understand the total
referral context in its broadest
sense. This means they also take on
the role of an expert who can
integrate data from a variety of
sources. Tests, by themselves, are
limited in that they are no flexible or
sophisticated enough to address
themselves to complex referral
questions.
SELECTING PSYCHOLOGICAL
TESTS
● The most important factor in test
selection is the extent to which the
test is useful in answering the
referral question.
● An assessment of neurological
patients might use tests sensitive to
the cerebral deficit; patients with
depression might be given the Beck
Depression Inventory–II and patients
with pain might be given the McGill
Pain Questionnaire, Millon
 Behavioral Health Inventory, or
Illness Behavior Questionnaire.
● Another important factor in test
selection is a particular practitioner’s
training, experience, personal
preferences, and familiarity with
relevant literature. For example, a
clinician who has received training in
the MMPI-2 might be concerned
about its ability to assess personality
disorders and may rather choose to
use an instrument such as the
MCMI-IV (Millon Clinical Multiaxial
Inventory, 4th edition).
● Clinicians might also select an
instrument because it has practical
efficiency in terms of time and
economy. Thus, they may wish to
use simple behavioral predictions
made by the client rather than use
more expensive, time-consuming,
and, quite possibly, less accurate
tests.
● One special concern in selecting
tests is faking. In many situations,
clinicians might be concerned that
persons will either consciously or
unconsciously provide inaccurate
responses. Malingering
(“inconsistent effort”) is becoming an
increasingly important issue,
especially in forensic settings, where
personal gain may result in
presenting “fake bad” results.
● Thus, clinicians may want to pay
particular attention to validity scales
built into tests (e.g., MMPI-2,
MCMI-IV) and use specialty
instruments designed to detect
faking (e.g., Test of Memory
Malingering, Structured Interview of
Reported Symptoms). Although
controversial, many projective
techniques may be resistant to
attempts at faking.
● Another special concern in selecting
tests relates to the time required for
assessment, which may cause
examiners to consider selecting
short forms of instruments such as
the WAIS-IV or WISC-V.
● Although many short forms for
cognitive tests seem sufficiently valid
for screening purposes, their use as
substitutes for the longer forms is
not acceptable. Most past attempts
to develop short forms for the longer
72 Context of Clinical Assessment
objective personality tests, such as
the MMPI-2, have not been
successful.
● A final crucial factor is that the
assessment instrument should have
good psychometric properties.
COMPUTER-ASSISTED
ASSESSMENT
● At present, computers are used
mainly for their clerical efficiency in
scoring and data storage and to
generate interpretive reports.
However, more and more, testing is
becoming available in computer/
tablet-assisted formats. Future uses
of computers are likely to continue to
experiment with features such as
innovative presentation of items
(e.g., adaptive testing), networked
norms, novel presentation of stimuli
(e.g., virtual reality),
psychophysiological monitoring, and
artificial intelligence.
● Computing in mental health has
included not only computer-assisted
assessment but also computer
interviews, computerized diagnosis,
computer-aided instruction, direct
treatment intervention, clinical
consultation, and simulated
psychiatric interviews
● Computer-assisted assessment has
a number of advantages. Use of
computers can save valuable
professional time, potentially
improve reliability and fidelity to
standardized administration, reduce
possible tester bias, and reduce the
cost to the consumer by improving
efficiency.
● Even greater benefits may someday
be realized by incorporating more
 complicated decision rules in
interpretation, collecting data on
response latency and key pressure,
incorporating computer-based
models of personality, tailoring future
questions to a client based on past
responses, and estimating the
degree of certainty of various
interpretations.
● Research on reliability, however, has
typically indicated that computerized
administrations have generally
excellent reliability that is at least
equivalent to the paper-and-pencil
versions.
● If a paper-and-pencil version of the
test is valid, a computerized version
will have equal validity resulting from
the comparability in scores.
● Practitioners should not blindly
accept computer-based narrative
statements but rather should ensure,
to the best of their ability, that the
statements are both linked to
empirically based research and
placed in the context of the unique
history and unique situation of the
client.