WHEREAS, it is the mission of this Association to promote the ethical and effective use of assessment instruments; and

WHEREAS, assessment instruments published by association members have for decades been ethically and effectively administered, scored, and interpreted by assessment professionals in many disciplines, including education, human resources, counseling, rehabilitation and psychology, who belong to professional associations, and in many cases are licensed or certified in various professional capacities; and

WHEREAS, these assessment professionals and their associations have established ethical standards dealing with the competent use of assessment techniques; and

WHEREAS, the instruments which include measures of mental abilities, aptitudes, interests, attitudes, personality characteristics, emotions and motivations have been effectively used in a wide range of educational, employment, training, consulting, and clinical settings throughout the United States; and

WHEREAS, individual members of the Association of Test Publishers (ATP) have provided assessment professionals with access to these instruments on the basis of their education, training, and/or experience in administering, scoring and interpreting these assessment instruments; and

WHEREAS, these assessment professionals who have been qualified by individual ATP member publishers to use these assessment instruments, perform a valuable and essential service to the public in ethical and effective ways; and

WHEREAS, recent efforts have been made in certain states through state licensure laws and business and professional codes to restrict access to and use of these assessment instruments only by psychologists who are licensed in that state;

BE IT RESOLVED, that it is the position of ATP that qualifications to use assessment instruments should be based on appropriate education, training, and/or experience, as evaluated by individual test publishers, and that access to assessment instruments should not be restricted exclusively to psychologists who are licensed in a given state; and further

BE IT RESOLVED, that is the policy of ATP to oppose all efforts to restrict use of assessment instruments exclusively to psychologists licensed in a given state or states, and that ATP shall monitor closely any attempts to restrict use based on licensure as a psychologist, and shall intervene where appropriate to ensure open and equal access to the use of assessment instruments for all qualified professionals.

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