2.C.2
When standard administration is not possible
Énoncé de compétence 2.C.2 d’ASPPB : Use relevant guidelines in situations requiring non-standard administration, scoring, and interpretation of assessment results
Norms assume that a test was given and scored exactly as in its standardization. When a disability, an interruption, a language barrier or a request from a third party makes that impossible, the psychologist uses the manual's provisions and professional guidelines to decide whether to accommodate, substitute, administer non-standardly or decline, and then documents the change and its likely effect on what the scores mean.
Notions clés
- Follow the standard procedures
- Tests are administered and scored as the manual specifies, including timing, instructions, prompts, and start and discontinue rules, because any departure changes the conditions under which the norms were collected.
- Document departures and limits
- Changes or disruptions to standard administration are documented and reported (Standards, Chapter 6). APA Standard 9.06 requires taking into account factors that might reduce the accuracy of interpretations and stating any significant limitations.
- Options when the standard route fails
- Use an accommodation or substitution the manual permits; choose a different measure of the same construct; or, when neither is possible, administer non-standardly and describe the results qualitatively without norm-based scores.
- Testing the limits
- Extra time, cues or retries given after the standard administration can show how and why a person fails, but only the standard administration is scored against the norms.
- Observers and recording
- Three neuropsychology organizations oppose third party observers and recording in medicolegal evaluations, because observation can affect the abilities being tested, threatens the validity of results and breaches test security.
Exemple commenté
Mr. Abboud, 40, has had a moderate stutter since childhood and is being evaluated for word-finding complaints after a mild stroke. The planned battery includes a timed verbal fluency task in which he names as many animals as he can in 60 seconds.
- His stutter will slow his spoken output whatever his word retrieval, so the fluency score would partly reflect speech motor fluency, a factor irrelevant to the construct.
- The psychologist checks the manual for an approved accommodation; extending the time limit is not one, because the norms assume 60 seconds.
- She measures word retrieval with a naming test that allows generous response time, and if she gives the fluency task, she describes his performance qualitatively without a norm-based score.
- The report names the stutter, the substitution and why the fluency result was not compared with the norms.
Protect the meaning of the score: accommodate within the rules, substitute when needed, and document every departure.
Vérifiez vos acquis
To reduce an anxious man's distress, a psychologist allows him 50 percent extra time on a timed visual puzzle subtest and then reports the score against the standard norms. What is the main problem?
Sources
- Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA and NCME, 2014), Chapter 3, Fairness in Testing (accommodations); Chapter 6, Test Administration, Scoring, Reporting, and Interpretation (standardized procedures; documenting changes and disruptions)
- APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (2002, amended 2010 and 2016; effective 2017), Standard 9.06, Interpreting Assessment Results
- Sattler (2018), Assessment of Children: Cognitive Foundations and Applications, Sixth Edition, Chapter on administering tests: testing the limits after standard administration
- Glen, Barisa, Ready, Peck and Spencer (2021), Update on third party observers in neuropsychological evaluation: An interorganizational position paper, The Clinical Neuropsychologist (PMID 34008473), The Clinical Neuropsychologist 35, 1107-1116 (NAN, AACN and ACPN oppose third party observers)