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Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Raw Test Data. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Raw Test Data. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

An Ethical Prohibition that Isn’t — And Never Really Was

By Robert E. Erard, Ph.D.
The National Psychologist
March 11, 2013

A decade after the 2002 APA Ethics Code and the HIPAA Privacy Rule should have settled the matter many psychologists continue to believe fervently that they have some special ethical duty to resist all formal requests for their raw test data, even when these requests are accompanied by releases from the test taker and even by subpoenas or court orders.

When asked for their test data, some psychologists claim paternalistically that nobody could ever understand what these mysterious numbers mean without being a licensed psychologist. They seem to ignore the fact that we ourselves have an ethical duty (Ethical Standard 9.10; APA, 2002) to provide test feedback (i.e., explaining those numbers), not to mention that most test publishers routinely sell test forms and computerized test interpretations to psychiatrists, social workers, counselors and others.

Other psychologists contend that either test copyrights or licensing agreements with test publishers prevent them from complying with these requests. They overlook the fact that the Fair Use Doctrine under the Copyright Act of 1976 (2011), the legal rights of test takers to their health care information and discovery rules governing the bases for experts’ opinions in forensic matters have consistently trumped these arguments when they have been put to the test (e.g., see Carpenter v. Yamaha, 2006).

The entire story is here.