19.3 – Score, Interpret and Protect Confidentiality of Test Results
Purpose & Context
Career Development Professionals (CDPs) assess clients to inform interventions. CDPs ensure that test scoring, reporting and interpretation comply with test publishers’ requirements. CDPs interpret results informed by the psychometric properties of the assessment, client characteristics that may impact the results, and the purpose of the assessment.
Effective Performance
Competent career development professionals must be able to:
- P1. Score test in line with test procedures
- P2. Interpret results, considering:
- Technical documentation, e.g. limitations of test results, prescribed use and interpretation of scales, norm or comparison groups
- Psychometric characteristics, e.g. reliability, error of measurement, validity, fairness
- Purpose of the assessment and evaluation
- P3. Protect confidentiality of results, for example:
- Obtain consent prior to releasing results to others
- Limit access to results
- Securely store results, e.g. encrypted data files
- Remove personal identifiers from databases of results used for research or other operational purposes
- P4. Retain scores as prescribed by organizational or legal guidelines
- P5. Report issues relevant to use and application of assessment and evaluation measure
Knowledge & Understanding
Competent career development professionals must know and understand:
- K1. Testing principles and ethical use of tests
- K2. Psychometrics and measurement, e.g. classical test theory
- K3. Descriptive statistics, e.g. frequency distributions, measures of central tendency, measures of variation, indices
of relationships - K4. Scales, scores, and transformations, e.g. types of scales, types of scores, scale score equating
- K5. Reliability and measurement error
- K6. Validity and meaning of test scores
- K7. Fairness, e.g. ensuring test design, content and format do not result in biased test scores for particular groups
Contextual Variables
Competent career development professionals must be able to perform this competency in the following range of contexts:
Glossary & Key References
Terms
Industry-specific terms contained in the standard defined here, where applicable.
Information Sources and Resources for Consideration
Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. American Educational Research Association (AERA), American Psychological Association (APA), and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME), 2014.
Test in Print IX. Buros Centre for Testing. Nancy Anderson, Jennifer E. Schuleter, Janet F. Carlson, and Kurt F. Geisinger, 2016.
Context Rating Scales
Criticality
Q: What is the consequence of a professional being unable to perform this skill according to the standard?
Frequency
Q: How frequent and under what conditions is this skill performed?
Level of Difficulty
Q: Under routine circumstances, how would you rate the level of difficulty in performing this skill?
Time Required to Gain Proficiency
Q: What is the average length of time or number of repeated events that are minimally necessary for an individual to become proficient in performing the skill to the standard?
A career development professional requires a minimum experience of scoring, interpreting 10 different assessment and evaluation tools as well as a minimum of one year experience in protecting test results.
Autonomy
Practitioners typically perform this competency without supervision, and alone.
Automation
It is unlikely that this competency will automate.