Swedish Test Institute (STP)

Report by: Dave Bartram 21/1/01

In Sweden an independent institute (the STP) was recently launched that will provide test user qualification certification, test reviewing, the quality audit of organizational testing policies and an ombudsman function for test takers to appeal to. Originally established in 1966 by the Swedish Psychological Association, new goals were set for the STP in 1996. The STP is an independent, non-profit organization working to obtain general consensus amongst the key stakeholder groups on quality in tests and test use. It is intended to provide an independent forum for professional test users, universities, professional associations, developers and publishers and will develop a quality model using a network of representatives of all stakeholder groups.

Test and test use quality assurance will be obtained by building on the ITC Guidelines on Test Use (which have been translated into Swedish for the STP) and by the publication of test reviews based on the British Psychological society (BPS) model.  The STP will also develop a scheme for the certification of test-user competence following the BPS model. The STP is planning to take forward the idea of accrediting organizational test policies and testing processes. Guidelines for organizational policies on test use are based on the model provided in the ITC Guidelines on Test Use.  

As the BPS has found, implementing test use standards is not a zero-cost process. It is necessary to treat the process of quality assurance as a business process.  Sources of revenue have to be identified to cover the costs of the delivering quality. The organizers of the Swedish Institute have identified a number of sources of revenue: 

In order to keep their costs to a minimum, STP will be operated as a virtual organization.

The STP has already published a number of key documents:

At the time of writing, they were also working on:

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