Psychological Assessment In the public domain

2000, Vol. 12, No. 3, 281-286 DOI: 10.1037//1040-3590.12.3.281

Practical and Ethical Issues Pertaining to Test Revisions

Kenneth M. Adams
Ann Arbor Veterans Affairs Health System and The University of Michigan

Revisions of clinical psychological tests are occurring at more frequent intervals than in the past. These
revisions involve such practical issues as the goals of the revision, the economic considerations relating
to the revision, the methodology of the revision, and the degree to which the revision meets the available
scientific and ethical standards governing the use of these tests in individual assessment. A tension
between practical and ethical issues in the test revision process is inevitable and demands the best of
psychologists in their decision making. Test developers, psychologists, patients, and consumers of the
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test interpretations and recommendations have legitimate interests and a stake in seeing that test revisions
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

are applied with maximal effectiveness and fairness in the broadest sense.

Revisions of clinical psychological tests used in individual
assessment appear to have become more frequent, not only in
terms of actual numbers of original versions of tests or tests being
updated but also in terms of a net reduction in the amount of time
between test revisions. These test revisions are most noticeable to
clinicians and others using general purpose psychological tests
(e.g., Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale [WAIS], Minnesota Mul-
tiphasic Personality Inventory [MMPI]). However, the trend to-
ward revision also encompasses tests used for special purposes
(e.g., Wide Range Achievement Test, Beck Depression Inventory).
Even checklist-type self-rating scales require informed updating
despite the fact that the central idea of the test is unchanged (Lubin
& Zuckerman, 1998). Where full-scale revisions of tests are not
undertaken, there are often new methods of scoring, new scales, or
derivative (e.g., brief) versions of tests introduced for psycholo-
gists' consideration and use. In addition, measures introduced
originally for one kind of use in certain developmental assessment
contexts (e.g., Vineland Scales) sometimes find expanded uses in
their revision as measures of activities of daily living applied to
new populations (e.g., geriatric trauma and chronic disease pa-
tients) as well as to patients with congenital skill limitations.
Indeed, if the introductory, promotional, or sales materials offered
by direct mail to psychologists are any indicator, the extent and
rate of individual test development has never been greater.
These revisions represent a trend demanding greater attention
from those who are selecting and administering tests, those who
Kenneth M. Adams, Psychology Service, Ann Arbor Veterans Affairs
Health System and Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, The Uni-
versity of Michigan.
This article was informed by discussions with colleagues in a number of
roles related to the process of test revisions. Whether corporate officials,
psychologist consumers, test critics, or attorneys knowledgeable about
tests, they deserve a note of appreciation for their candor and cooperation.
I especially want to note the contributions of Cathy Zepelin from a lifetime
of personal experience with test triumphs and foibles and Robert Ivnik, to
whom I turned to for some visionary thoughts about this issue and came
away rewarded as I suspected that I might.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kenneth
M. Adams, Psychology Service (116B), Ann Arbor Veterans Affairs
Health System, 2215 Fuller Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48105-2300.
Electronic mail may be sent to kmadams@umich.edu.
are taking tests, and those who are consuming test results and
findings based on them. There are both practical and ethical
considerations involved, which have diverse influences on the
process of test revision or modification. The goal of the present
article is to examine some of the considerations that clinicians,
educators, and researchers incorporate in their thinking regarding
the ongoing acceleration of test development. The article also is
meant to suggest appropriate questions or considerations when test
revisions appear. The article is cast in general terms and does not
apply to any particular type of test or maker of tests; issues specific
to group testing or nonclinical populations are not presented here.
Test Guidelines and Ethical Canons:
When Must a Test Be Revised?
There are no absolute practical or ethical guidelines suggesting
when a test requires revision, although there are consensus scien-
tific (American Psychological Association [APA], 1966; APA,
American Educational Research Association, & National Council
on Measurement in Education, 1974, 1985) and ethical (APA,
1992) codes touching on issues that should drive or structure
decisions about the need for test revision. The current published
version of Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing
(APA et al., 1985) states in Standard 3.18 that:
A test should be amended or revised when new research data, signif-
icant changes in the domain represented, or new conditions of test use
and interpretation make the test inappropriate for its intended uses. An
apparently old test that remains useful need not be withdrawn or
revised simply because of the passage of time. But it is the respon-
sibility of test developers and test publishers to monitor changing
conditions and to amend, revise or withdraw the test as indicated,
(p. 29)
This standard can be contrasted with the previous version, Stan-
dards for Educational and Psychological Tests (APA et al., 1974),
which makes more specific recommendations concerning the in-
formation that is desirable for psychologists to know regarding a
test's revision.
The ethical standard (APA, 1992) comes to the same recom-
mendation from the behavioral perspective of proscription in Stan-
dard 2.07, Obsolete Tests and Outdated Test Results:

281
 282 ADAMS
Psychologists do not base their assessment or intervention decisions
or recommendations on data or test results that are outdated for the
current purpose. Similarly, psychologists do not base such decisions
or recommendations on tests or measures that are obsolete and not
useful for the current purpose, (p. 1603)
For example, the ease of use of a particular test, its acceptance by
test takers, or its familiarity to assessment consumers is easily
outweighed by the fact that changes in the psychologist's practice
demographics make the available norms for the test's interpreta-
tion tenuous for the new kinds of patients being assessed. This
occurs even though the particular application of the test is well
within the range of intended uses and there is an absence of
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alternative tests with satisfactory attributes and psychometric char-
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
acteristics. Even collecting new local norms on the old test is
neither feasible nor a complete solution to the problem. A more
recent complication affecting older tests and their revisions may
also occur in instances of public disclosure of test stimuli whereby
coaching of patients on test taking takes place. This seems to be the
case in some forensic situations. Other examples of professional
practices not in compliance with the code regarding test obsoles-
cence are discussed in commentary or case volumes published
since the APA (1992) code (e.g., Canter, Bennett, Jones, & Nagy,
1994).
Many other conditions may also dictate a need for test revision.
The more obvious indications are the recognition of test materials
or stimuli as outdated (e.g., the picture of a 1950s automobile in
one intelligence test that has since been revised). Language usage
also changes in dramatic ways, rendering certain items ineffective
or neglecting to include new ideas or concepts (e.g., the Internet)
that relate more to adaptive behavior in modern society. Item
performance characteristics (cf. Knowles & Condon, 2000) may
also change in complex ways and are not invariant across revi-
sions. The demographic characteristics of the groups used in the
standardization of one revision of a test might change, as is the
case with multinational Hispanic immigration patterns in the de-
mography of the United States over the past 10 years. Finally,
there are changes in the definitions of problems that tests are
intended to identify, as was the case for post traumatic stress
disorder in relation to personality tests when the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed., American Psy-
chiatric Association, 1994) was introduced (Adams, 1996).
A wider appreciation of all of the potential implications of the
test revision process can be generated readily from a review of the
General Principles section of the APA Ethical Principles (APA,
1992, p. 1599). No psychologist could fail to generate inductively
a list of desired actions and attributes of a clinical test revision
process, including multiple entries under each of the realms of
competence, integrity, professional and scientific responsibility,
respect for people's rights and dignity, concern for others' welfare,
and social responsibility. The psychologist could organize these as
mandatory, discretionary, or enhancing to structure such a list, but
that would not shorten it given individual views and devotion to
these professional lodestars.
Experience and Practical Considerations: Considerations
Leavening Ethical Issues in Test Revision
Guidelines for psychological tests and ethical principles gov-
erning their use in the practice of psychology such as those cited
above represent consensus agreements to the current state of the art
to which professionals expect to be held. To point out that these
professional community standards are in some senses aspirational,
or that individual standards should not be interpreted or seized
upon in isolation to evaluate certain actions of psychologists
should not lessen the importance or salience of these standards.
However, guidelines and principles are inherently abstract and
cannot encompass the experience and practical considerations
likely to shape the behaviors of all those involved with and
affected by the test revision process. In this regard, one excellent
resource (Eyde et al., 1993) uses an empirical test use methodol-
ogy and case vignettes to create a superior syllabus in responsible
and ethical test use.
What blend of practical and principled considerations reason-
ably enters the decision to revise a test or adopt the revision? The
answers obviously are influenced by the particular details of a
given situation, but a representative set of considerations is pro-
vided here. This is not intended to reflect an exclusive or ordinal
set of priorities, but rather to indicate the interrelatedness of
principled guidance and practical realities of test revision.
Cost
No guidelines of any kind are available suggesting the cost that
producers of individual clinical psychological tests should bear for
test revision or improvement. Absolute cost may be an impossible
parameter to specify, and in this regard, the issue is probably best
described as cost-effectiveness.
When major revision was an infrequent event, it was possible
for test publishers to contemplate a revision over a long period of
time and to make fairly good estimates of how a revision would be
accepted and how to fund the cost of the revision process. In
addition, the publisher or owner would benefit from a large amount
of independent scientific evidence concerning the use of a test and
data indicating just what features of a test were strong or required
attention for improvement in the revision. This typically extended
to the subtests, items, norms, and even the format of the test. This
type of revision scenario permitted deliberate planning and some
notion of likely economic parameters of budgeting, expenditures,
and sales. It is a scenario that is now gone forever, except for the
unusual small test owner or publisher with a single test, a known
or familiar customer constituency, and little competition.
Instead, test revision in a contemporary context occurs when a
test is owned by or receives exclusive distribution through a test
publishing firm. Test publishing firms, in turn, are often part of
larger corporations with business concerns extending far beyond
psychology and publishing. This new environment has several
noteworthy features.
First, the decision to revise a test itself may be made in an
environment wherein die economic return of a test becomes the
salient factor in decision making about the test. This is a complex
calculus in that a firm doing business in psychological tests and
materials views a test revision as an investment needed to maintain
product competitiveness and to meet societal or legal obligations
for test viability. The process also needs to ensure that the revision
of a particular test is successful to help support the wider portfolio
of test products offered or to fund new development projects. In a
corporate environment, this ownership structure means that the
psychological test revision project must do well financially to
 SPECIAL SECTION: ETHICAL AND PRACTICAL ISSUES
support the viability of the entire psychological test subsidiary
in the wider organizational context of the corporation. For
example, a test publishing subsidiary of a large corporation may
have other subsidiaries selling books, software, etc., that have
an economic balance that a financially unsound test subsidiary
might undermine.
Second, the number of people involved in the test revision
process has expanded greatly. Test and measurement experts and
clinical application specialists previously predominated in the test
revision process, with consultants employed as needed. In this
environment, psychologists held sway with decisions influenced in
the main by clinical and measurement issues. However, the pro-
cess is now augmented by the participation of corporate officials,
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
lawyers, demographers, artists or technicians, marketing special-
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
ists, and financial officials. In addition, where a test is a revision
of a previous instrument with a person's name or legacy attached,
there may be productive or counterproductive participation by the
original test maker or heirs concerned with preserving their influ-
ence or legacy in the new version. The balance of roles and
responsibilities in this context makes for a social psychology of its
own, and all parties expect to be compensated for their roles.
Third, the corporate test revision context can be expected to
create increased pressure to find expanded markets for the revised
test. This is likely to take the form of (a) ideas for use of the
revised test by professionals other than psychologists, (b) ideas
regarding the use of easy, screening, or "self-administered" ver-
sions or tests, or (c) language translations of the test that must be
faithful to the cultural context of the intended takers and users of
the test.
These considerations create cost and sales pressures few psy-
chologists not involved in test development can fathom. In addi-
tion, these considerations potentially place some psychologists at
odds with other psychologists who have interests or roles in the
revision of the test. For example, the acquisition of normative data
for tests is expensive but essential for technical sufficiency and
practical acceptance. Many psychologists prefer to oversample or
otherwise extend a net of assurance by obtaining multiple or
replication samples in their test development plans. The counter-
vailing forces are the time this takes in the plan to get the revised
test to market and the cost.
Although some of the disagreements may be around matters
involving personal preferences, others may pit psychologists at-
tempting to honor test standards or ethical standards against non-
psychologists whose appreciation of or allegiance to these stan-
dards is entirely elective. Psychologists who become test owners or
corporate officials and work in this revision environment may have
more acute personal conflict over dual roles and may need to
engage in some serious self-scrutiny in order to create a consistent
and public position as to these multiple roles.
For psychologists, patients, and consumers of test outcomes,
cost is a factor as well as either a direct or an indirect consider-
ation. Historically, the rate of change accompanying psychological
test revision has been slow enough that the most common expense
noted by psychologists was in the resupply of test forms. Major
revisions, such as occurred when the WAIS (Wechsler, 1955) was
revised to become the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Re-
vised (Wechsler, 1981), were sufficiently infrequent to make ac-
quisition of the revised test a thoroughly justifiable expense.
Whereas large-scale revision of major clinical tests appears to
283
occur now at about 10-year intervals, increased costs of newer test
materials and the introduction of modified or knock-off products
(e.g., brief versions, screening versions, or special versions of tests
for particular research needs) have increased the amount that
psychologists can expect to budget and spend on test materials.
Even essential test reference resources are sometimes extra-cost
options (The Psychological Corporation, 1997).
One cost-containment strategy to counter this difficulty involves
partial revisions of tests designed to fix specific problems identi-
fied in the field or on research studies done after test deployment.
However, many major test revisions are also partial revisions
because certain items, a particular format, or a method of scoring
is retained (e.g., MMPI-2). Psychologists can expect to see such
intermediate revisions of tests in the future in the way software
revision for computers is done now.
Costs for psychological test materials historically have been
low, although this reality has not been widely recognized by the
public. The relatively low test and equipment costs prior to
1990 has led some psychologists to assume that this is the
normal state of affairs. It has led others to assume that they have
a right to inexpensive test products and to tempt them to
circumvent copyright adherence. Test publishers' catering to
psychologists who are unwilling to change and who seek lower
per test costs is not the only reason that publishers continue to
include obsolete tests in their catalogs, but these issues are
clearly operating in some test purchase decisions made by
psychologists even today.
With respect to copyright protection, the efforts most noticeable
to psychologists in enforcement have been in the area of computer
software for scoring and interpretation of certain psychological
tests. These efforts have often occurred when publishers produce
revised or enhanced ways to score their tests that psychologists
may want to add to their practice but are reluctant to buy. One test
publisher mounted a vigorous campaign to eliminate a secondary
market for homegrown software products that infringed on the test
maker's market. This resulted in a highly public prosecution and
blunt warnings to psychologists that similar action would be taken
where other instances of infringement were found.
The concern regarding accurate and ethical use of tests is also
reflected in reference materials on the forensic use of MMPI
products (Pope, Butcher, & Seelen, 1993). Suggested attorney
questions for psychologists are posed in this volume regarding the
use of authorized or bona fide test materials purchased from the
publisher in the assessment of patients and preparation of reports.
The inability of a practitioner to answer these questions under oath
in a way reflecting high standards of scientific quality control and
adherence to copyright would cast an unflattering light on the
respondent's practice at the minimum and could require a frank
admission of infringement or ethical breach.
Test makers are frustrated by the unwillingness of psychologists
to part with good dollars for good products. Positive marketing of
professional quality to show clinical tests as commercial products
having high value has taken place for over two decades, and the
academic atmosphere of test development and marketing prevalent
in years past is an element absent in most trade shows featuring
psychological tests. This is evident in multimedia displays, sophis-
ticated mailings, and market research, which were not features of
test publishing efforts even as little as two decades ago.
 284 ADAMS
Goals and Mission of the Test Revision
The task of revising a test should represent an opportunity to
revisit the basic assumptions that guided its original development
and previous revisions, if any. The original theory or field guiding
a personality or cognitive test may have grown or been superseded
by new research developments, such as item response theory
(Carroll, 1990; Rasch, 1980). Revisions of tests may encompass
new concepts and developments (Thorndike, Hagen, & Saltier,
1986) and create a test that represents a new paradigm and leads
the field but may also be unfamiliar to psychologists using the
previous version.
Every test revision project must address the question of how
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much scientific issues and progress should lead the profession in
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
the form of new test stimuli, approaches, or formats. Decisions to
strike out in new directions in a test revision carry risk and
potential reward. Strategies to use available research to refine and
perfect but not change a test fundamentally are more conservative
but fail to address the larger challenges of the changing assessment
environment such as the need to accommodate patient populations
with specific needs or disabilities. Economic decisions weigh in
equally with science in the finalization of goals and tasks in
revision. Questions of test acceptance follow closely behind the
development of a plan involving test features or scientific objec-
tives to be achieved in any revision project.
Test revision guidelines from both standards and ethics points of
view have as a central idea that a test should be either abandoned
or revised in a satisfactory way when it is no longer appropriate for
its current purpose. Yet, this criterion is easier to articulate broadly
than to define operationally. There are a host of ways in which
appropriateness may be weighed as a scientific or professional
determination, and the most exacting scrutiny of any proposed test
from all perspectives finds at least some grounds on which to
consider a test wanting. That is, grounds on which to suggest that
a test needs revision are always present virtually from the start of
a test's "shelf life."
However, the most important ethical net effect of an inappro-
priate test deployment is that a clinical decision or decisions that
are based on the test will be flawed or even harmful to a patient's
welfare. This indicator that it is time to revise a test brooks no
argument.
Some data exist (cf. Strauss, Spreen, & Hunter, 2000) regarding
the Flynn effect in which society-wide changes in cognitive skill
have been identified. The rate of this change might or might not
inform test makers' timetables for test revision. The ethical pro-
tection of patient welfare as a final common pathway and endpoint
for the assessment process drives the process of the revision of the
test on the basis of societal goals, which science can only serve
incompletely. This is a difficult reality for psychologists to accept,
but the testing process cannot be made orders of magnitude more
perfect or fair than society itself. Accordingly, revision of a test
cannot have as its goal the fulfillment of social mandates that are
beyond the capability of psychological tests to deliver, even if such
a course were wise. The fact that critics fault psychological tests
for not achieving one of many possible social goals is an inevita-
ble, anticipated, and welcomed consequence if the sense and
influence of such criticisms are constructive.
Test fairness in all its senses must remain a concern for all
parties involved with clinical tests. Balancing the effectiveness of
tests with social concerns is ethically defensible—and, coinciden-
tally, the best economic strategy for test revisions.
Thus, the goals for the revision of a test would need to incor-
porate (a) accumulated experience with the previous version, (b)
advances in the theory and method for the assessment of the
construct in question, (c) an appreciation of new ways in which the
test will be challenged, (d) consideration of financial and market-
place relationships between test sellers and psychologists and
between psychologists and their clients, and (e) technological
changes likely to impact the uses of the test. It is a given that
decisions about the revised test will reflect some trade-offs be-
tween the desirable and the possible.
Revalidation of the Revised Test
The Standards documents (APA, 1966; APA et al., 1974, 1985)
all cite important criteria for the validation of tests that should
logically govern test revisions. These criteria can be addressed in
the planning stage and evaluated in preliminary studies constitut-
ing the test manual's evidence of validity. However, test publishers
are not providers of psychological services, and the acquisition of
good validation data requires access to clinical material and entails
expense. Field trials of clinical psychological tests and neuropsy-
chological tests require patients with a degree of diagnostic cer-
tainty well above the norm for clinical practice if the data for
validation are to be definitive. Incentives for psychologists to
provide normative or test cases for test revisions are offered by
publishers of tests. Ethically, those incentives must strike a balance
between being sufficiently motivating but not unduly coercive and
tempting for the psychologist to stretch the diagnostic envelope of
truth.
At the same time in the validation or field test process, infor-
mation is gathered concerning psychologists' reaction to the pro-
posed test as well as the likely degree of acceptance. Psychologists
handle change no better than any other professional group. Despite
the incorporation of the newest thinking in personality or cognitive
science, the development of new metrics or psychometrically
modernized ways of understanding results, or special algorithms
for dealing with specific kinds of patient situations; clinical psy-
chologists are frustrated and withhold acceptance of a new mea-
sure when their favorite administration and scoring indexes are
updated. Interpretation protocols requiring new thinking about test
outcomes are also given less than hearty welcomes, particularly if
the likely problems caused by the change can be attributed to
external parties such as payers, schools, or courts. Many a provi-
sional version of a test revision is sent back to the drawing board
for retrofitting before the final product is released.
At the heart of the problem of psychologist acceptance of test
revisions often lies the question of what constitutes a change in a
test and what scientific, normative, and interpretative steps must be
taken to permit the test to be redeployed with confidence. This is
a central conflict in neuropsychological test revision, wherein one
position holds that even small changes in test stimuli or procedure
require recalibration and significant revalidation of a test if the
results are to be defensible. The contrasting view is that changes in
testing method are important, but subordinate to, the general
testing process leading to the essential psychologist's evaluation of
the adaptive ability in question. Test revisions are usually quite
traumatic to those holding the first view, regardless of the relative
 SPECIAL SECTION: ETHICAL AND PRACTICAL ISSUES
success of the process. Adherents to the latter viewpoint are
usually slower to see flaws or interpretative pitfalls that arise from
procedural or methodological causes.
It is at this juncture that most test publishers fail to avail
themselves of the observations and suggestions of career psychom-
etrists, whose ongoing practical experience in the test environment
typically far exceeds that of most psychologists. It is these spe-
cialists in actual test situations who can best predict likely points
of patient acceptance or irritation. They are also invaluable in
pinpointing expected administration and scoring deficiencies be-
fore the test is offered for sale, and these issues are identified as
flaws.
Revalidation of a test rarely satisfies all aspects of the Standards
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(APA, 1966; APA et al., 1974, 1985) in every respect, and this
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
cannot be expected to change in the future. Reflection suggests that
no single test-publishing entity could encompass all the sources of
skill and patient material needed to create a flawless revision.
However, attention to the letter and spirit of aspirational technical
standards is certain to improve the revised test product.
Revision as a Continuous Process
The process of test revision once had a phase in which the test
revision was complete and the revision was at least symbolically
placed in the hands of the provider community. This hand-off may
not remain feasible or desirable either now or in the future.
Experience in the use of a revision is a precious commodity early
in the life of the revised test, as the validation data in the test
manual serve as the only known standard of comparison. Accord-
ingly, the debut of a revised test is often accompanied by a frenzied
accumulation of cases regarding the performance of the revised
test in practice by researchers wanting to publish. This process
gives way to the growth of a more deliberate and experience-based
literature, eventually leading to some body of opinion in the
professional community regarding the revision.
Test makers may decide to lead this process rather than to
follow it in considering the process of test revision a continuous
one. I suggest that psychological test publishers deal with their
customers in the way that software producers do in issuing updates
and upgrades large and small. There are obvious normative prob-
lems with continuous modifications of tests, but problems need not
accumulate to a critical mass of obsolescence before being
addressed.
In a similar vein, actual computer software for test administra-
tion, scoring, and interpretation badly needs improved support and
forward development planning to serve contemporary needs. Many
psychologists either retain outdated computers solely because they
will run the only available test software he or she needs or because
its unlimited uses feature has been eliminated in the next revision,
and their perception of the per use cost is that it is too high.
Test revision as a continuous process also carries with it the idea
that product liability conceptions and law apply or are considered
to apply in ways not very often seen in psychological practice
today. Errors are made in decisions that are based on revised
psychological tests, but there are few, if any, comparable profes-
sions where error plays no role in practice. Even the most severe
test critic would be unlikely to suggest that product liability
standards used in manufacturing or the idea of recalls of revisions
of psychological tests would make great sense. Even less enticing
285
would be the introduction of mandated warnings about adverse
outcomes or side effects on psychological test protocols printed in
the manner of package inserts for drugs as required by the Food
and Drug Administration.
Finally, support by test makers for revised test versions is in
great need of improvement. Existing training materials are rudi-
mentary in their teaching about the revised test as a rule. Compe-
tent telephone support, newsletters, World Wide Web pages, and
other methods of solving existing problems and anticipating new
ones seem to be conspicuously absent resources once a psychol-
ogist is sitting with the new test kit on the table. Future efforts at
creating an ongoing relationship between test publishers, custom-
ers, and consumers of test revisions makes good basic business
sense.
The ethical revision of clinical psychological tests for individual
assessment, thus, is not a process with easy or expected features or
processes. Test makers try to anticipate the changing needs of
psychologists and their patients, but few psychologists are aware
of the context and mechanics of the test revision process or think
that they have the kind of input or ongoing relationship that would
improve the outcome of test revision. Test publishers may do well
to actually issue requests for user comments in trade publications
such as the APA Monitor. This would not only alert test users to the
existence of the test revision process but would also invite con-
structive comment at no great cost to the publisher. It is also firmly
in the spirit of seeing the development of psychological tests as a
public trust as well as a commercial enterprise.
The tension between the practical and ethical issues is inherent
in the test revision process and is unlikely to be legislated in a way
satisfactory to every involved party. The best informed and doc-
umented decision-making approach appears to be the only way for
psychologists to respond to the challenge.
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Received May 24, 1999
Revision received December 7, 1999
Accepted December 9, 1999

Call for Nominations

The Publications and Communications Board has opened nominations for the
editorships of Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Consulting and Clinical
Psychology, Journal of Educational Psychology, Psychological Bulletin, and Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology: Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes
for the years 2003-2008. Kevin R. Murphy, PhD, Philip C. Kendall, PhD, Michael
Pressley, PhD, Nancy Eisenberg, PhD, and Chester A. Insko, PhD, respectively, are the
incumbent editors.

Candidates should be members of APA and should be available to start receiving

manuscripts in early 2002 to prepare for issues published in 2003. Please note that the
P&C Board encourages participation by members of underrepresented groups in the
publication process and would particularly welcome such nominees. Self-nominations
are also encouraged.

To nominate candidates, prepare a statement of one page or less in support of

each candidate and send to

• Margaret B. Spencer, PhD, for the Journal of Applied Psychology

• Donna M. Gelfand, PhD, and Lucia Albino Gilbert, PhD, for the Journal of Con-
sulting and Clinical Psychology
• Lauren B. Resnick, PhD, for the Journal of Educational Psychology
• Janet Shibley Hyde, PhD, and Randi C. Martin, PhD, for Psychological Bulletin
• Sara B. Kiesler, PhD, for JPSP: Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes

Address all nominations to the appropriate search committee at the following

address:

[Name of journal] Search Committee

c/o Karen Sellman, P&C Board Search Liaison
Room 2004
American Psychological Association
750 First Street, ME
Washington, DC 20002-4242

The first review of nominations will begin December 11, 2000.