We began development of our item pool in the mid 1970’s when the discussion of potential bias in standardized measures was very prevalent. As a result, all items in our various instruments have been developed in consideration of disparate impact, as this is where bias begins.
In addition, the research team, and later the company, developed instrument validation procedures for each constructed instrument to allow the analysis of test scores by gender, age and ethnicity. Initial and ongoing validation studies demonstrate the lack of bias in relationship to age and gender, and the lack of bias in relationship to ethnicity, once education and country of origin is controlled. At this point our database contains many hundreds of thousands of cases.
Some Important considerations:
- The thinking skills portion of the instrument must be appropriately matched to the test-taker group, and that is why there are so many forms of the instruments. Our testing specialists will work with you to match your current population to the most appropriate assessment.
- Candidates must be able to read and respond to the items on the assessment in order to complete a valid assessment. Testing conditions should be equal for all persons you plan to assess. If an employee or student has reading comprehension issues or blindness (a documented disability), we can discuss how accommodation may be made to maintain the integrity of the assessment and still allow the individual to be accurately assessed.
- If English language skills are not adequate, and you are not concerned for how the candidate can communicate and think in English, we have other comparable assessments (in more than 20 languages) that may still allow you to assess their thinking skills and mindset in their preferred language.
- We recommend the testing sessions for all test-takers be free of distraction and that testing not be conducted when the individual is likely to be fatigued.
Contact us today if you have further questions.
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