Test not to international standards – UWI professor

A psychology professor believes it is highly unlikely the controversial Computer Science pre-test administered by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to school children in Barbados meets international standards.

Professor of Psychology at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Donna-Maria Maynard told Barbados TODAY that while she had not seen the questions on the test there appeared to be some level of deception involved.

Her comments have come following an apology from the IDB on Wednesday, where the international organisation took full responsibility for administering the test to first form students. It is said to contain deeply personal questions linked to sexuality and gender identity among other things.

In an initial apology that was rejected by Government, an official at the IDB claimed that the survey contained items on the “internationally-recognized Child Behaviour Checklist”.

The IDB official maintained that the survey included “international standard questions” on Positive Youth Development which were going to be used to capture the overall impact of the project.

However, Maynard said based on the questions asked in the test she could not see how it would meet international standards.

“I don’t think that could ever be the case. I doubt very much that this test, titled a Computer Science pre-test with questions that are not related to your computer skills at all, would meet international standards for ethics and research. They would have to show us evidence that this test was approved by a Research Ethics Board in some other jurisdiction. I doubt that very much,” Maynard said.

“Good practice in terms of test administration is that you declare everything up front in terms of what the test is about and that the users of the test have a chance to vet it before it goes forth to children. And again I would still emphasise even if it was a pre-Computer test that parents still should have been notified that their children were going to be asked to take this test.

“I think what’s more concerning about this case is that it was hidden under the cover of being some kind of pre-Computer test and to me it suggests there was an element of deception in the administering of this test. It should have been vetted by the Ministry of Education and I assume also that principals would have taken a look at it before distributing it in schools. I think that is of more concern at the moment,” the professor pointed out.

Maynard, however, maintained that there was no reason for “mass alarm”.

She pointed to the fact that children were exposed to a wide variety of topics and material through social media and television.

“I’m not saying that there is no way that this would have affected children, but our children are exposed to a lot on television and on the internet. Some of these topics I believe they would have discussed maybe with their guidance counsellors even at the primary school level, so I don’t think there is a reason for mass alarm as such. However, I’m glad that it has been brought up and it is being addressed because this will ensure that there is a new protocol followed when considering using tests within schools with our children,” Maynard said.

“I know the University of the West Indies has an institutional Ethics Review Board and I believe in the past the Board has reviewed tests that are going to be used in the school system and I believe that this one probably slipped through the net because of the belief that it was a pre-computer test.”

randybennett@barbadostoday.bb