Dehumanization

A Social Issue in the Context of the Testing Process

Reported by Cuajao & Erojo
 ˌdiːˈhjuː.mə.naɪz/
Merriam-Webster

: to remove or reduce human involvement or interaction in (something such as a

process)
 Dehumanization under
the Pillar of Automation
whereby technology replaces tasks that humans used to perform
 Question to Ponder
Will clinicians who increasingly rely on computers for test scoring
and test interpretation become better or worse clinicians?
Increasing popularity of
Computer-Assisted
Psychological
Assessment (CAPA) and
computer generated test
interpretation
has resurrected the clinical-versus-actuarial
debate
 In a clinical method, it refers to
the clinician's own training and
clinical experience as a

Clinical
determining factor in clinical
judgments and actions.

vs. In the actuarial or statistical

Actuarial
method, the human judge is
eliminated and conclusions rest
solely on empirically
established relations between
data and the condition of
interest.
 Actuarial assessment is not
synonymous with computerized
assessment.
Butcher, et.al, 2000
A computer-based test interpretation
(CBTI) system is actuarial only if its
interpretive output is wholly
determined by statistical rules that
have been demonstrated empirically
to exist between the output and the
input data
Sines, 1966
 Computerized assessment would
amount to a computerized application
of clinical opinion—that is, the
application of a clinician’s (or group of
clinicians’) judgments, opinions, and
expertise to a particular set of data as
processed by the computer software.
Grove et al. (2000) proceeded to
compare clinical judgment with
what they termed mechanical
prediction

meta-analysis of 136 studies that pitted the accuracy of clinical

prediction against mechanical prediction
 Findings
Grove et al. concluded that the mechanical approach was about 10% more
accurate than the clinical approach. The clinical approach fared least
well when the predictors included clinical interview data.
"Tipping the scales" in
favor of the statistical
approach
1.) human clinicians make error in judgment
2.) lesser cost
3.) clinical data defined in terms of MMPI or MMPI-2 scores
Reluctance remains...
As Karon (1981) argued, variables in the study of
personality, abnormal behavior, and other areas of
psychology are truly infinite
The Troubles of
Computerized
Test
Administration,
Scoring &
Interpretation
Access to test administration,
scoring and interpretation
software
A computer-administered test may be easily copied and duplicated
Comparability of
pencil-and-paper
and computerized
versions of test
The comparability has not been researched or has
only insufficiently been researched
The value of
computerized test
interpretations
In many cases, the value of the test interpretation
results is questionable
Unprofessional,
unregulated
"psychological testing"
online
Contributes to more public skepticism about
psychological tests
THREAT DETECTED
Imagine being administered what has been
represented to you as a “psychological test”
only to find that the test is not bona fide. The
online availability of myriad tests of
uncertain quality that purport to measure
psychological variables increases the
possibility of such events.
 The Dehumanizing
Tendencies that Lurk
in the Testing Process
the risk that machines will someday make important
decisions of our lives
Technology tends to
minimize individual
freedom and
uniqueness
Thus, society must weigh the risks against the benefits of growing
application of modern technology to the testing field.
As psychologists and the public
allow test results to be stored
and analyzed by computers, it
may become extremely difficult
to reverse this trend. Our
society must be founded on
principles of individual rights
and freedom.

Only when benefits far outweigh the risks and the risks
minimized can the decision be socially acceptable.
Implications of
Computer-based
Administrations
 A computer that has stored a bank of
achievement test items
of different difficulty levels can be programmed
to present items according to an algorithm or
rule.

For example, one rule might be “don’t present an item of the next
difficulty level until two consecutive items of the current difficulty level are
answered correctly.” Another rule might be “terminate the test when five
consecutive items of a given level of difficulty have been answered
incorrectly.”
Computerized adaptive testing (CAT) refers to
an interactive, computer-administered test
taking process wherein items presented to the
test taker are based in part on the test taker’s
performance on previous items.

The computer may not permit the test taker to continue with the
test until the practice items have been responded to in a satisfactory
manner and the test taker has demonstrated an understanding of the test
procedure.
 A Compromise of
Sorts
Clinicians are capable of providing information that
computers simply cannot capture in the form of
frequency tables, but how such clinical information
is used becomes a key question. It would be good to rely
on mechanical prediction for coming up with
the optimal use of such clinical information in the form of
decision rules.
 CONCLUSION
Ultimately, it is human hands that are responsible for
even the most eloquent computerized narratives, and
it is in human hands that the responsibility lies for
what further action, if any, will be taken. There is no
substitute for good clinical judgment, and the optimal
combination of actuarial methods and clinical
judgment must be identified for all types of clinical
decision making—including clinical decision making
that must be made as a result of neuropsychological
assessments.
References
Cohen and Swerdlik (2010). Psychological
Testing and Assessment: An Introduction to
Test and Measurement 7th Edition. McGraw-
Hill Primis. ISBN-10:0-39-011360-3

Kaplan, R. & Saccuzo D. (2013)Psychological

Testing:Principles, Applications and Issues 8th
Edition. Wadsworth Cengage Learning. ISBN 13:
978-1-133-49201-6