Is Psychometric Testing facing its ‘Kodak moment’?
At the European Congress of psychology 2019 in Moscow, Tor Levin Hofgaard controversial and thought-provoking keynote suggested that the profession of psychology was facing this sort of crisis: unless it kept its side of the bargain that professions make with society, it might become irrelevant to society’s core issues.
Given the rise in big data, social media analysis and other technological techniques, might psychometric testing be facing a similar crisis? At the very least its methods are being changed dramatically.
That’s why ETPG wanted to become involved in the work of other organisations such as the International Test Commission (ITC) and the European Federation of Psychological Associations (EFPA) . ETPG’s activities are designed to ride the wave of positive change while ensuring we reinforce proven scientific, professional and technical standards.
Ian Florance, our Executive Director, attended EFPA’s Board of Assessment (BoA) in Moscow as ETPG’s observer. Some individual ETPG members are already members of the BoA but this was the first time ETPG has been represented as an organisation.
The agenda covered issues ranging from how the board’s work is communicated through its web site; the accreditation system as applied to Belgian schools; expansion of the Eurotest Qualification to areas such as education, health and forensics. A working party already exists to revise the EFPA test review model which is used as the basis of a number of national models. We discussed who the review model was for; whether it was improving standards; how it was being misused and the need to react to the fast-changing technological position outlined above.
This latter issue was picked up at a panel meeting, which was part of the conference programme on the following day, in which Nigel Evans, Mark Schittekatte, Helen Baron and Ian Florance discussed how the review model might develop. Ian Florance reported some survey results from ETPG members on the issue and these were distributed after the meeting.
These are early days for a number of these discussions but will be picked up at the next BoA meeting in Vienna in November 2019.
ETPG is really glad to be able to provide information from its members and their hundreds of thousands of customers to inform the board’s important work.