2008 Revision of the Chinese Code of Ethical Use of Psychological ...

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ETHICAL USE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS IN CHINA 33culture, language, and clients’ traits should be taken into account when interpreting the results”;(b) “Psychological test users should strictly follow test procedures when administering psychologicaltests and avoid irresponsible judgment and interpretation”; and (c) “Psychological testusers should inform the clients of the results in a proper way and avoid potential harm to clients.”Inclusion of Four New ItemsDownloaded by [Peking University] at 18:02 05 February 2012Regarding test users’ qualifications, the two new statements were added to the code: “Only thosewho hold the certificate issued by Chinese Psychological Society are allowed to administer andinterpret psychological tests” and “Those who do not hold this certification can only conductpsychological tests under professional supervision and only for research purposes.” The certificateissued by CPS requires a bachelor’s degree in psychology or a practice of more than 2 yearsunder the supervision of psychological test professionals.To address the validity of measurement instruments, the following statement was added:“Only standardized and registered tests are allowed to be used in psychological assessment.”In terms of instrument development, the following statement was included: “Psychological testsauthors should follow rigorous scientific procedures ...and provide information on relevantnorms or critical scores, reliability, validity, and instructions on how to administer the tests.”SURVEY ON IMPLEMENTATION STATUSSeveral studies on the general ethical awareness of psychological professionals (e.g., Gibson& Pope, 1993) have provided positive evidence of the efforts of the American PsychologicalAssociation’s Ethics Committee regarding this issue. Consistent with this goal, several surveybasedstudies have been conducted among professionals on general ethical issues in China (e.g.,Qian, Gao, Yao, & Rodriguez, 2009; Zhang, Qian, & Yao, 2007).To date, no empirical study on the ethical awareness and attitudes on the usage of psychologicaltests among Chinese psychological professionals has been conducted. Thus, this studyattempted to investigate the implementation status of the 2008 ethics code 2 1 / 2 years after itslaunch. We explored two ethical aspects regarding the usage of psychological tests: (a) participants’ethical awareness on whether 44 individual behaviors are ethical, and (b) evaluation of theincidences of these behaviors among Chinese test users.METHODSParticipantsThe sample was composed of psychological professionals (34.9%) and psychology graduatestudents (31.0%). The other participants were employees in psychological testing companies.Participants were randomly selected from corresponding authors in the 12th Chinese Congressof Psychology. A total of 1,031 questionnaires were sent, and 284 were returned, for a validresponse rate of 27.5%.
34 GAN ET AL.The participants’ ages ranged from 20 to 61 years. In total, 35.2% of the participants weremale, 64.4% were female, and 0.4% did not report their gender. Of the participants, 47.5% held amaster’s degree, 31.0% held a doctoral degree, and 17.3% held a bachelor’s degree. Participantswere employed in a variety of industries: 60.9% were faculty members at universities, 12.3%were researchers at scientific research institutions, and 1.8% worked in hospitals. Their yearsof employment ranged from 0 to 29 years, with an average of 5.89 years. In total, 15.3% ofparticipants were graduate students, and more than 15% had been employed for longer than10 years. Approximately 60% of the participants reported that they had experience in developingpsychological tests, and 67.6% indicated that they had received training on administering andinterpreting psychological tests.Downloaded by [Peking University] at 18:02 05 February 2012Survey QuestionnaireThe structure of the questionnaire was adopted from the form used by Gibson and Pope (1993).The questionnaire had two sections. The demographic section presents 10 questions to collectinformation on gender, age, years of employment, educational background, work setting, purposesof using the tests, how many experts they know, whether they had taken a training courseon psychometrics, and whether they had experience in developing psychological tests. The scalesection contains 44 behaviors associated with the use of psychological tests developed accordingto the 13 items in the 2008 Code of Ethical Use of Psychological Tests.Participants were required to provide two ratings for each of the 44 diverse items coveringfive fundamental ethical aspects: qualification and competence, appropriate use of psychologicaltests, confidentiality, interpreting the results, and development of the psychological tests.Some original items in Gibson and Pope’s (1993) questionnaire relating to scientific criteria andconfidentiality were adopted and modified in this survey.After providing their demographic information, based on their knowledge, participants wererequested to indicate whether the behavior listed is ethical by using a 3-point scale consistingof the following response options: yes, no, and unsure. Second, the participants were asked toreport how often this behavior occurred around them, ranging from 0 (rare)to5(very common).All items have a correct answer (either appropriate or inappropriate) excluding three filler items.RESULTSGeneral Accuracy Rates and Behavior Occurrence FrequenciesIn the first section, the accuracy rates of the participants’ responses to the 41 items were calculated(three filler items were not included in all further analyses). The participants’ scores on thequestionnaire were recorded according to the answer key. The item accuracy rates ranged from25.5 to 97.5%, with an average rate of 67.1%. The accuracy rates for nearly one third of theitems were higher than 80%, and the accuracy rates were below 45% for 10 items. These itemsare discussed in detail in the following analysis of the five aspects.The percentage of choosing “unsure” for all 41 items ranged from 1.8 to 45.7%, with anaverage rate of 22.1%. Seven items—namely, “not informing the purpose or qualities of thetest,” “deleting or modifying original items,” “conducting unregistered psychological tests,”
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