Issues in Psychological Testing

1. What are at least two ethical issues associated with psychological testing? What impact do these issues have on the field of psychological testing?

            Psychological testing refers to the tools that are used for psychological evaluation with an aim of measuring and assessing the patients conduct so as to arrive with a diagnosis and guideline for the treatment function. As a result of the introduction of these tests in psychology, there are numerous ethical issues that have emerged. Consent is one of the ethical issues as patients must have an informed consent to the psychological consent on a voluntary basis. Therefore the psychologists should offer the information in a language that the patient can understand (Hogan 2007). Confidentiality is another ethical issue that has arisen from the use of psychological testing. The results of these measurements should be kept a secret and should only be released to the patients only or to other professionals who have the consent from the client (Hogan 2007).

2. What are at least two legal issues associated with psychological testing? How do these issues affect the field of psychological testing?
   
   

            Discrimination is one of the legal issues that affect the psychological testing. This involves the viewpoint that some of these tests violate upon some of the rights of the patient due to the racial and ethnicity differences. The law prohibits psychologists to apply tests and selection types that may result to an unequal and unfavorable discrimination of a patient in regards to sex, ethnic group or even race (Hogan 2007). Legality is another issue that affects psychological testing as psychologists are required by law to offer accommodations for a special group of people such as the disabled. Therefore, the psychologists offer alternative mechanisms in relation to their testing process for the disabled patients (Hogan 2007).

3. Which court case do you feel has had the largest impact on the field of psychological testing? Why?

            Crawford Versus Honig and Pase versus Hannon are some of the cases that brought about changes in the psychological testing. They acknowledged the essence of treatment after diagnosis and they influenced the understanding of intelligence and the factors that determines it (Hogan 2007).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Hogan, T.P.(2007). Psychological Testing: A Practical Introduction (2^nd Ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.