Taking Testing Too Far?
As I was sipping my morning brew and browsing through global news articles, I stumbled across a curious headline: “Orwellian Psychological Tests”. After a quick consultation with the dictionary, I learned that Orwellian is an adjective used to describe something as being destructive to the welfare of a free and open society. Intrigued, as any PSYC 406 student might be, I decided to investigate.
According to the news article, the Scottish National Party has plans to implement a project that will dive headfirst into the private lives of every child in Scotland. Every child under the age of eighteen will be assigned a “Named Person” to be responsible for their welfare. Such persons are promoted as a support contact for children and parents alike. Scottish school children will face psychological testing by both teachers and Named Persons throughout their school careers, with topics ranging from sexual health to home life. Youngsters will be subtly quizzed about their private lives with games and prompt cards, while older children will complete questionnaires asking them to rate various home experiences on a scale of zero to ten. Named persons must also judge each child’s well-being against a government checklist, with indicators such as a child’s need for fillings at the dentist. Answers will be stored in a government database network for future analysis, where children may be flagged for further investigation.
So what’s the problem here?
1. For starters, it seems to me that such unnecessary and intrusive testing, or dare I say interrogation, is none other than a complete breach of privacy. Psychological tests often dance on the boundary of appropriate information seeking, but completely denying families the right to a private life goes far beyond that.
2. I have concerns surrounding the face validity of tools like the ‘well-being indicator’. Rather than attempting to measure a child’s well-being through their happiness or creativity, it appears that the Scottish Government is more interested in measuring parenting skills.
3. Apparently Scottish folk aren’t very concerned with the idea of informed consent. The article goes on to describe how parents will be notified of the “resilience testing” via letters in the mail, and Named Persons will be entitled to demand information and share it with police and social workers without parents’ consent or knowledge.
4. Bias among teachers and Named Persons against parents who are gay, poor, black, single etc. … How does the Scottish National Party plan to accommodate for inevitable prejudices?
So for now what’s my word on all of this? I think the Scottish National Party exemplifies exactly what it means to be “taking testing too far”. And as for that adjective “Orwellian” to describe these psychological tests… Well, it seems like a perfect fit!
