Psychological Assessment in South Africa

Research And Applications

Sumaya Laher, Kate Cockcroft, Zaytoon Amod, Katherine Bain, Fatima Bhabha, Marita Brink, Nicoleen Coetzee, Marié Beer, Gideon Bruin, Diana Sousa, Fiona Donald, David Edwards, Emma-Kate Gaylard, Renate Gericke, Kirston Greenop, Deidre Heafield, Lorna Jacklin, Tina Joubert, Anil Kanjee, Kathy Knott, M, Sumaya Laher, Kate Cockcroft

• Publisher: Wits University Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781868149452
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Histoire et théorie en psychologie

This book provides an overview of the research related to psychological assessment across South Africa. The thirty-six chapters provide a combination of psychometric theory and practical assessment applications in order to combine the currently disparate research that has been conducted locally in this field. Existing South African texts on psychological assessment are predominantly academic textbooks that explain psychometric theory and provide brief descriptions of a few testing instruments. Psychological Assessment in South Africa provides in-depth coverage of a range of areas within the broad field of psychological assessment, including research conducted with various psychological instruments. The chapters critically interrogate the current Eurocentric and Western cultural hegemonic practices that dominate the field of psychological assessment. The book therefore has the potential to function both as an academic text for graduate students, as well as a specialist resource for professionals, including psychologists, psychometrists, remedial teachers and human resource practitioners.

1	Contextualising psychological assessment in South Africa

S. Laher and K. Cockcroft

Psychological assessment in South Africa is a controversial topic primarily, but not exclusively, because of its links to South Africa’s troubled past. The history of South Africa is a chequered one, characterised by ethnic and racial interaction, integration and conflict (Heuchert, Parker, Stumpf & Myburgh, 2000). The tribal groups that occupied the country prior to the arrival of white settlers in 1650 followed patterns of merging and splitting that were similar to those in most other parts of the world. Some groups were formed voluntarily and others by conquest and subjugation. In 1652, the ancestors of present-day Afrikaans-speaking South Africans arrived. They were originally mainly of Dutch ancestry, and later also of German and French ancestry. Slaves from the former Dutch colonies in the East (mainly the territories now forming part of Malaysia) were also brought to the Cape at this time. In 1834 all slaves were emancipated. Around the same time a common language developed amongst the groups in the Cape consisting of a mixture of words from the Malay, Khoisan, Portuguese, French and Bantu languages, but with Dutch as a base. Towards the late 19th century this language was recognised as Afrikaans. Although the former slaves spoke the same language (Afrikaans) as the white settlers, after 1948 they were separated into two groups based on skin colour – namely, white Afrikaners and coloured Afrikaners. The other main white group in South Africa consisted of English-speaking South Africans who arrived in the early 1800s with the aim of ‘settling the frontier’ (Heuchert et al., 2000, p.113).

In the 1860s, British settlers recruited indentured labourers from India primarily to man the sugar, tea and coffee plantations in the Natal region. These labourers were promised good wages and the right to settle as free men after five years. The failure to implement the freedom policies for Indians led to Gandhi forming the Natal Indian Congress, the first mass political organisation in South Africa. At the same time, members of the Indian merchant class also came to South Africa and were instrumental in setting up trade in the then Transvaal region of the country. Even though this merchant class had more freedom than the indentured Indian labourers and Malay former slaves, they were still regarded as an inferior group by the white population. Together with the indigenous South African tribes, coloureds and Indians were classed as a ‘black’ group. Relationships between the white Afrikaners and white English-speaking South Africans were tense – so much so that two wars were fought between the two groups. However, they were united in their efforts to subjugate black South Africans (Heuchert et al., 2000).

In 1948 the National Party, which was the dominant political party at the time, instituted a formal system of racial segregation called apartheid. Apartheid ensured the reservation of social, economic and political privilege for white South Africans, while black South Africans (referred to as ‘non-whites’) were denied access to basic material resources, opportunities and freedom. This divide-and-rule tactic also created further social stratification within the black population. South African Indians, particularly the merchant classes, had a higher socio-economic status, followed by coloureds, while the section of the population most discriminated against was the indigenous African tribal groups. While opportunities and freedom for Indians and coloureds were curtailed, these groups had better access to infrastructure and basic resources such as water, electricity and housing, whereas the indigenous groups were denied even this. Indigenous African groups were encouraged or forced to accept a tribal identity by means of a series of policies that separated and removed people to rural ‘homelands’ such as Bophuthatswana, Venda and Transkei. Urban residents were separated by racial classification and forced to live in separate residential areas. Those urban areas set aside for indigenous Africans were very small, with little or no infrastructure, resulting in further oppression of this group of people (Heuchert et al., 2000).

The role of psychological assessment within this turbulent history was equally contentious. According to Claassen (1997), psychological testing came to South Africa through Britain, and the development of psychological tests in South Africa followed a similar pattern to that in the USA. There was a difference, however. South African tests were developed in a context of unequal distribution of resources as a result of apartheid policies. According to Nzimande (1995), assessment practices in South Africa were used to justify the exploitation of black labour and to deny black people access to education and economic resources. Sehlapelo and Terre Blanche (1996) make the similar point that tests were used in South Africa to determine who would gain access to economic and educational opportunities.

Under apartheid, job preference was given to white individuals and a job reservation policy was put in place that ensured employment for whites. Psychometric testing and psychological assessment were misused to support this policy; for example, tests that were developed and standardised on educated white South Africans were administered to illiterate, uneducated or poorly educated black South Africans, and the results were used as justification for job reservation and preference. They were also used to indicate the superiority of the white intellect over the black intellect, and thus to further justify the logic of the apartheid system. This practice resulted in a general mistrust of psychological assessment, and more specifically psychometric testing, amongst the black population in South Africa (Foxcroft & Davies, 2008; Nzimande, 1995; Sehlapelo & Terre Blanche, 1996).

It is important to note that discriminatory practices in psychological testing were not exclusively a product of the apartheid regime. As early as 1929, Fick was conducting research on black children using the Army Beta Test, which was standardised for use on white children. The black children performed noticeably more poorly on the test than the white children. Fick (1929) initially concluded that environmental and educational factors were primary factors in understanding the poor performance of black children. Ten years later, he opined that differences in nonverbal intelligence tests were more likely due to innate differences between blacks and whites (Fick, 1939). However, the Interdepartmental Committee on Native Education (1936) released a report that highlighted the irregular assessment practice of using a test normed on white people to assess black individuals.

Also prior to the advent of apartheid, the National Institute for Personnel Research (NIPR) was established under the leadership of Simon Biesheuvel. The institute focused largely on tests which could identify the occupational suitability of black individuals who had very little or no formal education. Biesheuvel (1943) argued that black individuals were not familiar with the content of items on tests or with the type of test material used, and so he introduced the concept of ‘adaptability testing’ (Biesheuvel, 1949) and developed the General Adaptability Battery (GAB).

While the NIPR focused on developing tests for industry, the Institute for Psychological and Edumetric Research (IPER) developed tests for the educational and clinical spheres. These two bodies dominated the field of psychological assessment from the 1950s to the late 1980s, when both divisions were incorporated into the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). The HSRC specialised in developing local measures. This was necessary primarily because of the sanctions imposed by other countries on South African access to their test materials. Although the work done by the HSRC is often criticised, it needs to be recognised that it was one of the most productive agencies for psychological assessment in South Africa and, in a number of ways, created the foundation on which the field stands today.

The release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 and the first democratic election in 1994 marked a turning point in South African history. The system of apartheid had failed, and a system that promoted mutual respect, democracy, freedom of expression and transparency was developed and legislated in a very progressive Constitution. Since 1994, South Africa has experienced rapid transformation in all spheres – social, political and economic. In this climate, it was vital that past inequalities be redressed and that a way forward be found that subscribed to the country’s new-found democratic identity.

Psychology, particularly psychometrics and assessment, had played a controversial role in the previous political dispensation of the country and there now arose a pressing need for research and practice in the field to redress the negative effects of these practices. Around this time, the HSRC was restructured and the unit devoted to testing and assessment was repositioned. HSRC tests, as well as international tests such as the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) for which the HSRC held copyright in South Africa, were sold to private organisations such as Jopie van Rooyen and Partners, Saville and Holdsworth Limited (SHL), Psytech and Mindmusik. These organisations took over the test distribution, adaptation and development role.

At the turn of the millennium, South African psychologists were more aware than ever of the need to create instruments or utilise pre-existing instruments in a fair and unbiased manner (Abrahams & Mauer, 1999a; 1999b; Foxcroft, Paterson, Le Roux & Herbst, 2004; Laher, 2007; 2008; 2011; Meiring, 2007; Nel, 2008; Sehlapelo & Terre Blanche, 1996; Taylor & De Bruin, 2006; Van Eeden & Mantsha, 2007). This shift in consciousness was strongly linked to legislation promulgated in Section 8 of the Employment Equity Act No. 55 of 1998 which stipulated that ‘[p]sychological testing and other similar assessments are prohibited unless the test or assessment being used (a) has been scientifically shown to be valid and reliable; (b) can be applied fairly to all employees; and (c) is not biased against any employee or group’. Unlike other countries where issues of bias and fairness are addressed by the codes of conduct of professional organisations of psychologists, in South Africa the importance of fair and unbiased testing and assessment was incorporated into national law (Van de Vijver & Rothmann, 2004).

The value of psychological testing remains a contested one in South Africa (Foxcroft, 2011). Its critics see it as being of limited value for culturally diverse populations (Foxcroft, 1997; Nzimande, 1995; Sehlapelo & Terre Blanche, 1996). Others argue that, regardless of its flaws, testing remains more reliable and valid than any of the limited number of alternatives. Since testing plays a crucial role within assessment internationally, proponents suggest that the focus be on valid and reliable tests for use within multicultural and multilingual societies (Plug in Foxcroft, 1997).

South Africa is 18 years into democracy and it is essential to determine whether the field of psychological assessment has found a way to address these criticisms. Many academics and practitioners have been extremely active in the discipline of psychological assessment. However, although a substantial portion of this work has been presented at various local and international conferences, it has not always been published and is therefore not widely available. Thus, one of the aims of this book is to collate existing research on commonly used measures and assessment practices so that practitioners and researchers can make informed decisions about their usage with local populations.

Since the 1990s, there have been several excellent and useful textbooks published on psychological assessment, but these tend to be targeted at an introductory level for undergraduate students and, in some cases, for specialist student groups (see Foxcroft & Roodt, 2008; Huysamen, 1996; Kaliski, 2006; Moerdyk, 2009). There is no South African text that approaches the complex phenomenon of psychological assessment in a more in-depth, critical manner. Having taught psychological assessment as a subject at postgraduate level for a number of years, and with our collective experience in the field, we conceptualised this book as a text that would bring together the range of work on psychological assessment in South Africa currently available.

Our aim is to provide an accessible text that gives a comprehensive and critical overview of the psychological tests most commonly used in South Africa, as well as of research conducted on these instruments. Strauss, Sherman and Spreen (2006) state that a working knowledge of tests without the corresponding knowledge of the psychometric properties and the research that accompanies their use renders us inadequate as practitioners. Thus, we hope that this book will provide readers with an understanding of critical issues relevant to psychological test use in the South African context, including the strengths and weaknesses of psychological tests that have been identified based on empirical research.

Further, we felt it was valuable to present a few alternative approaches to the more traditional views of psychological assessment, some of which have a distinctly South African flavour, such as the chapter on Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) as a way of evaluating an individual’s acquired learning and skills. In addition to its local relevance, the book interrogates the current Eurocentric and Western cultural hegemonic practices that dominate the field of psychological assessment and engages in international debates in psychological theory and assessment.

In compiling this book, we examined past issues of the South African Journal of Psychology and the South African Journal of Industrial Psychology, as well as some issues of Psychology in Society and the Journal of Psychology in Africa, to establish potential assessment areas and tests currently in use in South Africa, as well as to identify key individuals working in the field. The HSRC needs survey published in 2004 (see Foxcroft et al., 2004) was also a useful source of information. In addition to this, we examined conference programmes in order to locate those who were working in the field of psychological assessment. Invitations to submit abstracts for this book were sent to all individuals identified in this way. Following this, a general call to submit abstracts for the book was sent to all heads of local psychology departments. The chapters presented in this book represent the culmination of this effort.

When authors were invited to contribute to the book, we were careful not to impose too rigid a structure on the format, rather allowing each author to find the structure that best matched their particular chapter focus. Thus, the reader will note slight variations in presentation across the chapters. Furthermore, since the book is intended to be a specialist research text, primarily for postgraduate and professional use, the chapters read more like research articles than textbook chapters. Each chapter addresses significant and sophisticated arguments, and because they are written by local experts in the field who are strong supporters of their fields or instruments, the arguments may not always be evenly balanced. Nonetheless, most chapters maintain a critical focus and the final judgement is left up to the reader.

The chapters form natural groupings into three sections. Sections One and Two focus on particular psychological instruments. The chapters in these sections each provide a brief introduction to the instrument, including its history, development and psychometric properties. This is typically followed by a detailed critical examination of the instrument in the South African context, incorporating local research. These chapters emphasise the applied, practical nature of assessment, as well as the challenges inherent in assessment within a particular area or domain. The first two sections also include more generalist chapters pertaining to particular assessment methodologies, such as projective techniques and dynamic assessment. Sections One and Two also, for the most part, address assessment from traditional perspectives. Although dynamic assessment is addressed in Section One, and many of the chapters in the first two sections...