Ethics and Law for School Psychologists, 8th Edition

Chapter 6 ETHICAL AND LEGAL ISSUES IN PSYCHOEDUCATIONAL ASSESSMENT

Psychological testing and assessment techniques, in common with most tools, can be used for a diversity of purposes, some destructive and some constructive, and their use cannot be separated from the training, competence, and ethical values of the clinical-user. (Matarazzo, 1986, p. 18)

This chapter focuses on ethical and legal issues associated with the assessment of individual students within the context of an established school psychologist–client relationship.

TESTING VERSUS ASSESSMENT

In their work with teachers, parents, and children (and in their own thinking), it is important for school psychologists to distinguish between testing and assessment. Testing and assessment are not synonymous, interchangeable terms (Matarazzo, 1986). A test is a tool that may be used to gather information as part of the assessment process. Assessment is a broader term. Mowder (1983) defined the assessment process as “the planning, collection, and evaluation of information pertinent to a psychoeducational concern” (p. 145). A psychoeducational assessment of a student referred for an individual evaluation is conducted by a psychologist trained to gather a variety of different types of information (e.g., school and health history; cultural, language, and experiential background; observations; test results) from a number of different sources (e.g., student, teacher, parents) and to interpret or give meaning to that information ...