The Major Pitfalls (Historical and Current) Associated with Using Psychological Measures in the Multicultural South African Context
The Major Pitfalls (Historical and Current) Associated with Using Psychological Measures in the Multicultural South African Context
Alaina Kamille Govender
University of Kwa-Zulu Natal
South Africa is deeply embedded in the roots of its past and so it inevitable that psychological assessment today would be greatly influenced by the history of our country. Foxcroft (1997) argued that there is a grave importance to understand the impact that South Africa’s past apartheid policies have had on the development and use of psychological testing. In her paper she addresses the impact of Apartheid policies on test development and use as well as linguistic, cultural and norm factors that would pose a threat to the fair, unbiased and ethical use and interpretation of psychological tests.
This assignment will follow a similar outline, whereby the past and present of psychological assessment will be discussed in order to understand why the status of psychological assessment has not progressed to the level that was expected of post-apartheid South Africa. Finally, the laws or statutory controls that have been used to regulate measures will be discussed.
It is important to firstly understand what psychological testing is and when it can be used. According to Krupenia, Mouton, Beuster and Makwe (2000), a psychological test is an “objective and standardized measure of a sample of behavior” (Setshedi, 2008). Tests must meet three important criteria; validity, reliability and standardization. According to Gadd and Phipps (as cited in Groth-Marnat, 2009), a standardised test is one which keeps the test items, administration, scoring, and interpretation procedures consistent thus allowing comparisons between scores. The aim of standardising tests can therefore be described as structuring tests so as to compare different persons’ scores (Gadd and Phipps, 2012). However, a problem arises due to the diverse and multicultural contexts of South Africa. It becomes difficult to yield fair
Alaina Kamille Govender
University of Kwa-Zulu Natal
South Africa is deeply embedded in the roots of its past and so it inevitable that psychological assessment today would be greatly influenced by the history of our country. Foxcroft (1997) argued that there is a grave importance to understand the impact that South Africa’s past apartheid policies have had on the development and use of psychological testing. In her paper she addresses the impact of Apartheid policies on test development and use as well as linguistic, cultural and norm factors that would pose a threat to the fair, unbiased and ethical use and interpretation of psychological tests.
This assignment will follow a similar outline, whereby the past and present of psychological assessment will be discussed in order to understand why the status of psychological assessment has not progressed to the level that was expected of post-apartheid South Africa. Finally, the laws or statutory controls that have been used to regulate measures will be discussed.
It is important to firstly understand what psychological testing is and when it can be used. According to Krupenia, Mouton, Beuster and Makwe (2000), a psychological test is an “objective and standardized measure of a sample of behavior” (Setshedi, 2008). Tests must meet three important criteria; validity, reliability and standardization. According to Gadd and Phipps (as cited in Groth-Marnat, 2009), a standardised test is one which keeps the test items, administration, scoring, and interpretation procedures consistent thus allowing comparisons between scores. The aim of standardising tests can therefore be described as structuring tests so as to compare different persons’ scores (Gadd and Phipps, 2012). However, a problem arises due to the diverse and multicultural contexts of South Africa. It becomes difficult to yield fair
References: Foxcroft, C.D. (1997). Psychological Testing in South Africa: Perspectives Regarding Ethical and Fair Practices. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 13(3), 229–235 Foxcroft, C.D. (2004). Planning a psychological test in the multicultural South African context. South African Journal of Industrial Psychology, 30 (4), 8-15. doi: 10.4102/sajip.v30i4.171 Roodt, G. (2005). An introduction to psychological assessment in the South African context. C. Foxcroft (Ed.). Cape Town: Oxford University Press. Gadd, C., & Phipps, W.D. (2012). A preliminary standardisation of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test for Setswana-speaking university students. South African Journal of Psychology, 42(3), 389-398. doi: 10.1177/008124631204200311 Hall, G. C. N., & Maramba, G. G. (2001). In search of cultural diversity: Recent literature in cross-cultural and ethnic minority psychology. Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology, 7(1), 12-26. Joseph, L., & van Lill, B. (2008). Investigating subscale differences among race and language groups on the Occupational Personality Profile. South African Journal of Psychology, 38(3), 501-514. Laher, S. (2012). Exploring bias in the South African context. Bias in psychometric studies in South Africa. Retrieved from http://psychologicalassessmentinsouthafrica.com/2012/09/15/exploring-bias-in-the-south-african-context/?lang=en_us&output=json&session-id=64f730c625ea35421afe396501a0896e Mauer, K. F. (2000). Psychological test use in South Africa. Retrieved April, 19, 2013. Retrieved from http://www.pai.org.za/Psychological%20test%20use%20in%20South%20Africa.pdf Paterson, H., & Uys, J. S. (2005). Critical issues in psychological test use in the South African workplace. Retrieved from https://ujdigispace.uj.ac.za/handle/10210/2712 Setshedi, M. J. (2008). Investigating the Use of Psychological Assessment in South African Schools (Doctoral dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand). Retrieved from http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10539/5927/RESEARCH%20REPORT.pdf;jsessionid?&lang=en_us&output=json&session-id=64f730c625ea35421afe396501a0896e