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Ethical Guidelines
Guidelines for the Ethical use of Psychometric Assessment Instruments
All users of our psychometric tools and/or their outputs are expected to follow our guidelines for ethical practice, detailed below.
Communicating with Participants
- All participants should receive a briefing on the following before completing a psychometric assessment:
- The nature of the assessment.
- Why and how the assessment is being used.
- It is generally best practice to provide feedback to participants. In the event that participants are to be given feedback this should be provided in compliance with any applicable statutory or regulatory requirements and the participant should be informed when and how the feedback will be delivered.
- How long the participant’s results will be retained for.
- Who will have access to the participant’s results (which will include the test publisher when the administration is delivered on-line, participant data is entered on the test publisher’s platform for scoring or the participant data is otherwise submitted to the test publisher for any purpose).
- Participants should be given ample opportunity to ask questions regarding the assessment process, and receive an honest and professional response.
- Participants should be invited to reveal any factor which might make the assessment less suitable for them (e.g. a disability or poor language skills). If there is a potential difficulty, appropriate adjustments to the assessment process should be made. If the user is uncertain of the steps that should be taken to ensure a fair administration with respect to any participant they should contact Saville Consulting to seek guidance.
- Participants should never be forced to undertake an assessment – but the consequences of non-participation should be clearly explained (e.g. elimination from the recruitment process or development scheme).
Administration and Use of data
- Assessments should only be used if they are appropriate for the purpose and will provide relevant data. The choice of assessment methods should always be based on the results of an appropriate job analysis.
- Assessments must be administered, scored and interpreted by trained personnel according to the instructions provided by Saville Consulting in the relevant manuals and related administration materials.
- Careful consideration should be given before using psychometric assessment instruments with current employees in making promotion and placement decisions where more direct evidence of performance is available (e.g. appraisal reports and other personnel records).
- Profile reports should only be used by trained users (for interpretation purposes and to provide more detailed feedback to the candidate).
- Feedback reports are provided by Saville Consulting in order to deliver feedback to the participant. These reports are self contained and may be given direct to the candidate. The participant should be given the opportunity of seeking clarification or further explanation with respect to the feedback report should they wish to. It should be noted that any feedback offered to participants should be delivered in compliance with any applicable statutory or regulatory requirements.
- Psychometric data may only be used for purposes previously agreed to by the participant and in accordance with the privacy policy and other terms, contained on the Saville Consulting website, manuals and other relevant literature published by Saville Consulting.
- Psychometric data should always be corroborated and integrated with data from other relevant sources (e.g. structured interviews, work sample exercises, performance ratings, etc) when used in decision-making.
- Users should check the ongoing validity of instruments. When used with small numbers this should include checks of continued relevance. Where substantial numbers of people are tested, criterion related validation studies should be undertaken which compare the results with data about the individual’s performance in the work place or in other assessments.
- Regular reviews of assessment results and their impact on decisions taken with respect to participants from different groups (e.g. race, gender, age etc.) should be undertaken.
Security of Materials
- All assessment materials (including booklets, answer forms and profile reports) must be stored securely and only be accessible to qualified users.
- Where the qualified user moves from their current employer or department they should, where possible, ensure that any restricted materials are transferred to another qualified user. If there are no qualified users to whom these products can be entrusted you should contact Saville Consulting to discuss the possible return of unopened resaleable packs of current materials.
- All data stored (on file or electronically) must be held according to the requirements of any applicable legislation with respect to the storage, use and confidentiality of personal data.
- It is an infringement of ethical guidelines and of international copyright law to copy, modify, translate or in any way replicate, in whole or in part, the products supplied by Saville Consulting. The user confirms that all steps reasonably necessary shall be taken to ensure that no Saville Consulting products under their control will be used in a way that would infringe our copyright or trade marks and will report to us any such infringements that they become aware of.
Responsibility for Competence
- Users are responsible for maintaining their own level of competence in the use of psychometric assessment tools.
- Users should not offer services which lie outside their competence.
- Users are responsible for maintaining their knowledge of current legal and best practice requirements regarding the use of psychometric tools.
Last update on Oct 11, 2005