BTPA members subscribe to the our professional standards. These state that all members should be transparent in describing their tests, questionnaires and other instruments.

There are many different ways of developing and using assessments, as well as genuine disagreement about what constitutes a "good" assessment. BTPA requires its members to be explicit about what how they developed their materials and the evidence they have for the claims they make. The Association does not lay down arbitrary criteria for " acceptable" assessments.

By taking this approach we hope to provide you with all the information you require to make a professional judgement on the best instrument to meet your unique need.

Association members discuss these issues regularly and challenge each other to meet the BTPA standards. We invite you to do the same, helping us to improve quality and choice in the instruments and services we offer you.

BTPA Mission

To promote best practice in the use of tests, assessments and questionnaires through the provision of high quality material, accurate and transparent information for test users and clients, and adequate training.

Statement

Members of BTPA adhere to a Code of Conduct. Membership of the Association depends on members taking all reasonable steps to ensure that their psychometric tests, questionnaires, assessments and other instruments for decision making are constructed, used and interpreted properly and that these issues are accurately described in both technical and marketing literature. BTPA members will:

1. Rationale for tests and assessment tools and methodologies

• make specific reference to theoretical or empirical work which led to the instrument being developed and detail all relevant variations from this basis.
• make clear where there is no particular theoretical or empirical basis for the instrument.
• highlight all innovations and new/ untried approaches, making clear that they are experimental until empirically validated.

2. Construction of instruments

• explain the process used for writing items/questions
• explain steps taken to ensure that items are fair to different social, ethnic, gender and disabled groups.
• give details of procedures used for ensuring items/questions are relevant to what is being tested.

3. Trialling

• Give details of trialling including numbers, dates and descriptions of samples from early pilot samples to more extensive final stage samples. Members will highlight incomplete research records.

4. Analysis

• explain the rationale for particular methods of analysis, including any theoretical basis.
• provide statistical and qualitative details which accurately represent the analyses carried out.
• point out the strengths and weaknesses of both the methods and the data.
• explain complex statistical procedures in an accessible manner.

5. Norms and standardisation

• give full details of any standardisation/ norm samples including numbers, dates and descriptions in a prominent way, highlighting where they are only partially representative of a target group, e.g. “senior managers”, or based on small and/or unevenly representative samples.
• provide information on the reliability of the instrument and guidance on interpreting differences between individuals and, if appropriate, sub-scales of the instrument.
• provide appropriate statistical evidence for all assessment methods: normative, ipsative or other.
• provide details of differences in scores for different sex and ethnic groups, indicating what data is available; make clear where insufficient data exists to draw valid conclusions about sex and ethnic differences.

6.Administration and interpretation

• provide guidance on administration to ensure best practice and consistency.
• give guidelines for making interpretations, with particular reference to the limits of the scores.
• describe the rationale and research on which the guidelines are based.
• give clear justification for claims to interpret particular scores or profiles.
• provide on-going support to test users in the areas of interpretation, adaptation to test materials, and information on test up-dates and revisions.

In order to ensure that user documentation accompanying instruments provides clear coverage of all these points, publishers will ensure that such documentation is reviewed and approved by suitably qualified personnel. Ideally such personnel will be Chartered Psychologists with practical experience of psychometric test construction and use in the work/occupational arena.

Where data is judged to be absent or inadequate in a significant range of areas, members should consider labelling their tools “Experimental” until further data is gathered, and/ or recommending that scores from tests and assessments are used only as aids to discussion within assessment contexts.

For a slightly more comprehensive and technical version of these standards, please click here