Standardized Tests: Recouping Development Costs and Preserving Integrity

Abstract

Psychometric tests are designed to measure knowledge and a variety of psychological attributes. To be useful, they must be validated, sometimes at great expense. Developers often seek to recoup costs by controlling reproduction. Often, too, developers seek to avoid validity-defeating publication.Thus far, both ends have been served by copyright law despite a variety of challenges, including ones occasionally based on subject matter. No one, however, seems to have claimed that copyright law is ill suited to control the reproduction of text designed to produce or collect rather than disseminate information.Focusing on that dichotomy, this paper argues that current copyright law should have, at best, a limited role in halting free riders and preserving the potential for reuse of validated questions. It also briefly explains why copyright is rarely needed to recoup the costs of devising standardized tests.