Ethical issues in testing and evaluation for personnel decisions

Reviews sources prescribing ethical personnel practices and discusses ethical obligations of psychologists and employers. Psychologists' obligations to their profession include keeping informed of advances in the field, reporting unethical practices, and increasing colleagues' sensitivity to ethical issues. Their obligations to job applicants and employees consist of guarding against invasion of privacy, guaranteeing confidentiality, obtaining informed consent, respecting the individual's right to know evaluation results, imposing time limitations of data, and minimizing false positive and false negative decisions. Psychologists' obligations to their employers include conveying accurate expectations, ensuring high-quality test data, and respecting the employers' proprietary rights. Employers' obligations involve restricting the amount and type of data collected and maintaining commitment to equal employment opportunity and employee privacy. Research for resolving ethical issues and dealing with conflicting rights is suggested. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).