What is it about?
This is the first in a series of articles on the disclosure of test data. During litigation, attorneys seek information from the other party and their expert witnesses. This is called discovery. When psychologists are hired as expert witnesses in the litigation, they test one of the parties and the test taker's responses are known as test data. Psychologists then use this test data to write a report and/or testify about the person. Attorneys then seek discovery from the psychologist expert, along with the underlying information used as the basis for that report / testimony. That includes test data. However, many psychologists do not want to disclose test data out of a concern that it might become public knowlege and thus ruined for future users. They want the courts to order disclosure to another psychologist instead of to the attorney. This article surveyed 151 cases and found that almost 2/3rd's of courts ordered discovery of test data, versus about 10% ordering disclosure to another psychologist (a difference of almost 7 to 1).
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Why is it important?
Almost all of the past literature on this subject have been advocacy pieces, presenting the reasons why the courts should not order discovery of test data. Also, the literature merely presented logic-based reasons; this is the first article to present objective data about what courts (who are, after all, the decision makers here) actually do. This article investigates the competing interests of test publishers (withholding information) and the legal system (judicial access to information).
Perspectives
The 'test security' view is an ideological position that is promulgated primarily by the forensic neuropsychologists within the field of psychology. It is not shared by other subfields, such as forensic psychology. I say that it is ideological because (a) it is extreme ('test data must never be disclosured to non-psychologists under any circumstances') and it's proponents typically fail to be convinced by evidence and reason. Also, this position has its roots in the ethics code of the 1990's and has been mostly unchanged for at least 25 years. It has failed to accommodate changing public policies, such as patient access rights (à la HIPAA).
Dr. Bruce G Borkosky
Ohio Wesleyan University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Releasing test data and the emperor’s new clothes: The need for disclosure in plain sight?, Practice Innovations, October 2024, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/pri0000221.
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