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Using Tests Responsibly: Ethics in Assessment

Name: 8.12 Using Tests Responsibly: Ethics in Assessment — Educational Psychology
Uploaded: 2026-09-28T13:25:45+00:00
Duration: 8 min 34 s
Description: Competence, confidentiality, FERPA, and the professional duties attached to a score

Educational Psychology · Chapter 8: Assessment, Testing, and Making Sense of ResultsSection 8.12 · lesson 81 of 1009 min · free with a free account

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In this lesson

Competence, confidentiality, FERPA, and the professional duties attached to a score.

Name the core ethical principles in assessment
Explain what FERPA requires of educators
Identify misuse of assessment in practice
Report scores with appropriate uncertainty

Transcript

Everything said in the video, section by section (1,105 words). Read along, or search it.

Assessment, Testing, and Making Sense of Results

Using Tests Responsibly

Behind every test score there is an actual person. Their opportunities and their self-concept may turn on how it is used. That sentence is the foundation of everything in this section. We will cover the core ethical principles in assessment. Competence, confidentiality, informed consent, and proper use. Then what counts as misuse, which is broader than most people think. Then FERPA, the federal law governing student records. And the digital privacy questions that come with online tools. One theme runs through the whole section. Almost none of these failures require anybody to act in bad faith. Most of them happen through ordinary carelessness.

The Frameworks

Where the Rules Come From

Assessment ethics covers a wider span than most people assume. It is the professional obligations of educators and psychologists. Obligations across the design and administration of assessments. And their scoring, interpretation, and communication. Two frameworks govern the field. The Joint Committee on Testing Practices provides one. The American Psychological Association provides the other. Specifically its Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. Notice the breadth of that opening list. Ethics does not begin when a score gets reported. It begins when the instrument is designed, and continues afterward.

Four Principles

The Core Obligations

Four core principles organize ethical assessment practice. The first is competence. Only administer assessments that you are qualified to use. That is a genuine constraint, and it is regularly ignored. The second is confidentiality. Protect student data from unauthorized disclosure. The third is informed consent. Ensure students and families understand the purpose of an assessment. And understand how the results will be used. And the fourth is proper use of results. Use scores only for the validated purposes the test was designed for.

Misuse

Three Ways Scores Get Used Wrongly

A fundamental obligation is to represent results accurately. And to avoid misuse, which takes three recognizable forms. First, applying scores to decisions the test was not validated for. Using a reading fluency test to determine special education eligibility. The test may be excellent. It was simply not built for that job. Second, presenting scores without appropriate context. And without the standard error of measurement attached. Third, using results to stigmatize or label students. In ways that create self-fulfilling prophecies. There is also a duty of translation that sits alongside these. Communicate results so families genuinely understand them. Rather than burying the meaning in technical jargon.

Standard Error

Reporting the Uncertainty With the Number

One requirement deserves particular attention. The standard error of measurement. It estimates the expected variation in a student's score. Variation across repeated testing of the same student. So why must it accompany a reported score? Because a single bare number implies a precision measurement lacks. It looks exact, and it is not exact. Standard error conveys appropriate uncertainty to the reader. And this connects directly to the anti-single-test principle. If a score carries known variation, any decision resting on it alone inherits all of that variation, and none of the warning.

FERPA

The Law Governing Student Records

Student assessment records are protected by federal law. That law is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. FERPA. It grants three rights to parents, and to students over eighteen. The right to inspect and review educational records. The right to request corrections to them. And the right to limit disclosure to third parties without consent. Those rights create corresponding duties for educators. Assessment data must be stored securely. It must be shared only with people who have a legitimate educational interest. And it must never be disclosed to external parties. Not without appropriate authorization first.

Digital Tools

Two Acronyms Before You Adopt a Platform

Digital assessment platforms add privacy questions of their own. Educators should verify that any online tool meets two standards. The first is FERPA, which we have just covered. The second is COPPA. That is the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. It protects online data collection from children under thirteen. Here is the practical version of that requirement. A free classroom tool that collects student data is not free of obligations. Somebody has to actually check that it complies. And in most schools, that somebody is the teacher adopting it. Which is a real responsibility attached to a two-minute sign-up.

In Practice

What Confidentiality Actually Forbids

In practical terms, what does confidentiality forbid? A teacher should not post student scores publicly in the classroom. Even ranked lists intended as motivation. A teacher should not discuss one student's results with another student's family. And assessment data should not go to non-educational parties. Not without parental consent first. Even within a school, data should be shared on a need-to-know basis. With the purpose of improving outcomes for that student. Not satisfying curiosity, and not facilitating gossip. Schools that build strong data privacy cultures gain something specific. Families come to trust the system with sensitive information.

Six Principles

Requirement, and the Violation That Breaks It

Six principles, each paired with the violation that breaks it. Competence requires administering only tests you are qualified to use. The violation is testing without training. Confidentiality requires protecting data from unauthorized access. The violation is posting scores publicly. Informed consent requires families to understand purpose and use. The violation is surprise high-stakes testing. Accurate reporting requires context and measurement error. The violation is reporting a single score with no standard error. Proper use requires using tests only for validated purposes. The violation is using a reading test for eligibility on its own. And non-stigmatizing practice avoids labels that harm self-concept. The violation is announcing that a student is below grade level in class.

Classroom Example

Verbal Permission Is Not Consent

Here is an ethics question that looks simple and is not. A school counselor receives a request from a local employer. The employer wants a graduate's high school assessment records. As part of a job application, which sounds reasonable enough. And the graduate gave verbal permission, in the counselor's office. So the release seems clearly authorized. It is not. FERPA requires written consent before records go to third parties. Third parties outside the educational context, specifically. So the counselor explains the requirement. And provides the graduate with the appropriate FERPA release form. Two things happened in that exchange, not one. The counselor modeled ethical data management. And educated the graduate about their own rights.

How To

Five Practices, and Why They Matter

Five practices turn all of this into a routine. First, build an assessment literacy plan into your professional development. Second, know your school's FERPA policies, and share them with colleagues. Third, always provide standard error information with individual scores. Fourth, seek multiple data points before any high-stakes decision. Fifth, communicate results in plain language. With students and families actually present for the conversation. Before making any consequential decision, ask yourself four questions. Is this the right tool? Are these scores valid for this purpose? Have I considered other information? And have I communicated results in a way the family can understand? Behind every score is a person whose future may turn on the answer.

About Educational Psychology at UPI Study

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FAQ

Questions students ask us

About Using Tests Responsibly: Ethics in Assessment

What are the core ethical principles in educational assessment?

The core ethical principles in assessment are competence, confidentiality, informed consent and proper use of results. Competence means giving only tests you are qualified to administer; confidentiality means protecting student data; informed consent means families understand a test's purpose and how results will be used; and proper use means applying scores only to the purposes the test was validated for.

What does FERPA require of teachers?

FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, requires educators to store student records securely, share them only with people who have a legitimate educational interest, and not release them to outside parties without proper authorization. It gives parents, and students 18 or older, the right to inspect records, request corrections and limit disclosure. Releasing records to an employer, for example, requires written consent.

Why should test scores be reported with a standard error of measurement?

A score should be reported with its standard error of measurement because a single bare number implies more precision than any test has. The standard error estimates how much a student's score would be expected to vary across repeated testing. Showing it warns readers that the score is uncertain, which is also why a consequential decision should not rest on one score alone.

What counts as misuse of assessment results?

Misuse of assessment results includes applying scores to decisions the test was not validated for, presenting scores without context or measurement error, and using results to label or stigmatize students. Using a reading fluency test to determine special education eligibility is one example. Posting scores publicly, even as a ranked list meant to motivate, also breaks confidentiality.

About the Educational Psychology course

How many college credits is Educational Psychology?

Educational Psychology (Psychology 120) carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.

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$250, paid once, with lifetime access: all 100 video lessons, a practice quiz after each, the graded work and final exam, and an official transcript when you finish. Students who want several courses choose UPI Study PRO instead.

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