Ethical and Legal Issues

1
Ethical and Legal Issues

• Chapter 16

2
Ethics vs. Law

• Ethics what one should or should not do,
  according to principles or norms of conduct
• Law what one must or must not do, according to
  legal dictates

3
Ethical Use of Tests

• Competence
• develop competence in assessment concepts and
  methods
• recognize boundaries of competence
• Informed consent
• client/subject must voluntarily consent
• psychologist must inform client about nature and
  purpose of assessment in understandable language

4
Ethical use of tests

• Knowledge of results
• must fully disclose test results in
  understandable language
• Confidentiality
• test results are confidential information
• release of results should only be made to another
  qualified professional after clients consent

5
Ethical Use of Tests

• Test security
• Materials kept securely
• Test items are not revealed except in training
  programs and when mandated by law
• Automated Scoring/Interpretation Systems
• Psychologist is still responsible for proper
  interpretation of test results

6
Guidelines of the EEOC (Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission)

• 14th amendment guarantees all citizens due
  process and equal protection under the law.
• In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed.
• In 1970, guidelines were released by the EEOC
  regarding fair employee selection procedures.
• In 1978, the guidelines were revised and
  published. They affect most public employment
  and institutions that receive government funds.
• Civil Rights Act again revised in 1991

7
EEOC says selection procedures may not have an
adverse impact.

• Use the four-fifths rule a selection rate of
  any race, sex, or ethnic group which is less than
  4/5 or 80 of the rate for the group with the
  highest rate will generally be regarded as
  evidence of adverse impact.
• If violated, the employer has to demonstrate that
  extenuating circumstances make the standard
  unreasonable and that selection has adequate
  validity
• Use of subgroup norms is not acceptable

8
EEOC Guidelines to Criterion-related Validity

• Is it technically feasible? -- how large a
  sample is needed and do we have it?
• Analysis of the job -- what work behaviors are
  important? Consider possible bias in both the
  selection of the criterion measure and their
  application.
• Criterion measures Do they represent important
  work behavior or work outcomes? Can
  automatically use production rate, error rate,
  tardiness, absenteeism and length of service.
• Representativeness of sample are sample
  subjects representative of the candidates
  normally available? Make sure to consider jobs
  performed, length of time on the job, and other
  factors likely to affect validity differences

9
EEOC Guidelines to Criterion-related Validity -
continued

• Statistical relationship 05 level of
  significance used?
• Operational use of selection procedures Is the
  correlation statistically significant simply due
  to sample size? Is this the only measure used
  (multiple measures are better) ?
• Overstatement of validity findings Were
  procedures used that capitalized on chance? Use
  large samples and cross validation.
• Fairness Studies mainly limited to large
  organizations that have enough people in a job
  class.
• Unfairness is when one group obtains lower scores
  on a selection procedure than members of another
  group AND the differences are not reflect in
  differences in a measure of job performance.

10
Lawsuits in Education

• Stell v. Savannah-Chatham County Board of
  Education Board argued that African-American
  children didnt have the abilities to be in the
  same classrooms as whites based on IQ scores
• Hobson v. Hansen Psychological tests used to
  place African-Americans into basic track and
  whites into more advanced tracks
• Diana v. State Board of Education Placed in
  special education based on tests administered in
  English

11
Lawsuits in Education

• Larry P. v. Wilson Riles Argued that any test
  that assigns disproportionate numbers of children
  from one race to an EMR category is racist and
  discriminatory
• Parents in Action on Special Education v. Hannon
  same issue as Larry P. but different outcome
• Crawford et al. v. Honig et al. Follow-up to
  Larry P. case where same judge reversed himself

12
Lawsuits in Education

• Debra P. v. Turlington Argued that African
  Americans were disproportionately affected by a
  minimum competency test needed to graduate
• GI Forum v. TEA Same argument, except for Texas
• Bakke v. Regents of the University of California
  First lawsuit that signals a change in attitude
  about affirmative action

13
Lawsuits in Industry

• Griggs v. Duke Power Lawsuit that began the
  requirement to show tests were related to job
• Wards Cove Packing Company v. Antonio Reversed
  Griggs v. Duke Power. Spurred Congress to change
  the Civil Rights Act.

14
Test Administration and Validity

• Detroit Edison Co. v. NLRB Plaintiff wanted to
  see copy of test he scored low on to see if there
  was an error in scoring
• Connecticut v. Teal Issue of discrimination
  when there had been no adverse impact
• Association of Mexican-American Educators v.
  California Teacher certification test had
  higher failure rates for Mexican Americans.

15
Americans with Disabilities Act and Testing

• Section 504 reads A recipient (of federal
  funds) shall make reasonable accommodations to
  the known physical or mental limitations of an
  otherwise qualified handicapped applicant or
  employee unless the recipient can demonstrate
  that the accommodation would impose an undue
  hardship on the operation of its program.
• Some interpret this to mean that extra time or
  other accommodations should be allowed in
  completion of psychological or achievement tests.

16
ADA and Testing

• APA Standards emphasize a standardized
  administration.
• Brookhart v. Illinois State Board of Education
  Accommodations for disabled must be made in
  completing a minimum competency test for
  graduation but test didnt have to be modified
  substantially.
• Reader to assist learning-disabled boy on
  statewide graduation test Reader could be used
  on portions of test that didnt measure reading