The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Griggs v. Duke Power Company (1971) will have important effects on industrial personnel practices. The decision will do much to make qualification the all important factor in hiring and selection, and will tend to make race, religion, nationality, and sex irrelevant factors. (Author)

Examines the legal issues concerning (1) cultural bias in educational tests; (2) the validity of employment tests; and (3) the disclosure of test materials. Discusses the legal interpretations of psychometric concepts that have arisen from recent litigation. (Author/GC)

The purpose of licensing and certification tests is to protect the public. This purpose determines test content, difficulty of the items, test format, use of test scores in decision making, and ways of setting standards. Currently being explored are methods to ensure continued competence, and legal considerations related to antidiscrimination…

Note that judgments about the relationship of test items to actual job duties have generally been made as a single comparison, proposes a model for analyzing the accuracy of translations for each step of the process of test development for use in personnel administration, and suggests scaling procedures appropriate for the various judgments. (JM)

This Digest overviews legal challenges in five areas of test use for decision-making in schools: ability tracking, placement in special education classes, test scores as college admissions criteria, test disclosure, and teacher competency testing. Cases illustrating these challenges are described and include: Hobson v. Hansen (1967), Moses v.…

Reviews the judicial-legal definition of test bias as it has emerged in court litigation, asserting that while technical research studies of test bias have focused either on predictive validity or content validity, the judicial-legal concepts of test bias have attempted to focus on both these issues in a relatively non-technical manner. (JM)

Truth in testing, competency testing, and intelligence tests constitute the central topics of this newsletter. The authors review a report prepared by the Education Commission of the States on truth-in-testing legislation and litigation, covering recent efforts at the state and federal levels to open the testing process to public scrutiny. They…

One of the major concerns of the California school district represented in this case study centered on the possible legal problems associated with minimum competency testing (MCT). The responses of the district to the California law regarding MCT, and to six potential problem areas, are documented. (LC)

In 1994 the Federation of State Medical Boards and the National Board of Medical Examiners instituted a three-step U.S. Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE). Step one of the USMLE may be vulnerable to legal challenge on the basis of minority group bias and lack of construct validity. (SLD)

Competency testing often refers to a system devised to assure successful performance on a specific test, in addition to other mandated criteria as a requisite to obtaining a high school diploma. Minimum competency testing is usually defined in one of two ways: as the acquisition of basic skills or as the demonstrated ability to apply basic skills…

Legal issues at the state and constitutional levels and associated misconceptions related to written preemployment integrity tests are addressed. Common misconceptions include the beliefs that: (1) such tests fall within the purview of state antipolygraph statutes; (2) unfair discrimination doctrines are violated by integrity testing; and (3)…

Implementing measurement specialists' ideas about content validity with licensure examinations and the problem of court litigation are discussed. Validity issues surfacing when sponsors of national licensure examinations conduct validity investigations are considered. Issues include local versus national focus on content validity, job analysis,…

The purpose of this research paper is to identify and examine legal issues and implications of mandatory competency tests (MCT) for high school graduation. The major data source for this investigation was actual court cases and abstracts and interpretations of court cases. It is not the purpose of this paper to perform a general review of…

Litigation in the area of teacher evaluation has developed around issues concerning the processes and criteria used by school districts in conducting evaluations. Following an introduction explaining basic concepts, chapter 2 discusses the appropriate content of teacher evaluation, examining formal adoption of evaluation policies, compliance with…

A lawsuit involving the National Board for Respiratory Therapy illustrates that certification examinations are vulnerable to complaints of discrimination and employers' misuse of test results. The board's five-step process--position-viability study, personnel survey, job analysis, item writing/test development, and criterion-related validity…