Too Many Charts - by Jack Ogilvie

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I have been having a discussion lately with some other
examiners that I thought I might let you in on. I would
like to get your opinion.

The focus of this discussion has been on pre-employment
testing. We have been discussing the "Law Enforcement
Pre-employment Test" or the "LEPET" as taught by DODPI.
Understand up front that this is not a criticism of DODPI
or the LEPET. It is a discussion of some concerns
revolving how many charts should be run.

We have been talking mainly about "No Opinion" results.
The guidelines of this test indicate that when you have
a subject who is N.O. (the scoring is the same as a MGQT
format) you should question them gently about why they
are having a problem with the test. If the subject makes
an admission on a relevant question eliminate the
admission and re-test i.e. "Besides shooting your uncle,
have you committed a serious crime you haven't told us
about". You should review all the questions, including
the comparisons (called honesty and integrity questions
on this test) and the irrelevant (called "known truth
questions").

If the subject makes no admissions, the relevant
questions should all be slightly reworded i.e. "Have you
committed a serious crime you haven't told me about"?
I usually tell them they appear to be a bit confused so
let's try to focus the questions a little better. Then
review the honesty and integrity questions along with the
known truth questions. Another series of three charts is
then run.

The discussion here revolves around the running of the
second series. We feel that to many subjects are coming
back D.I. after the second series because they are now
worried about having a problem when they were telling
the truth. At best they come back N.O. again and we
haven't accomplished anything. In fact we may have set
them up to fail should they return.

Obviously if a subject gives you an admission, you
should be able to run another series with little or no
damage to the subjects psychological set as long as you
re-emphasize the comparison questions also. The same
cannot be said for a N.O. subject if no admissions are
made. Just telling the subject that the test appears to
be unclear can destroy their psychological set and cause
a second series to be another N.O. or even a D.I...

The feeling is, if a subject gives no admissions, on a
N.O. test, they should be sent home and brought back at
a later time for a re-test. A letter may even be
requested asking them to try to explain why they
appeared confused. You might be surprised how many new
admissions you get in these letters.

So far running a second series of charts seems to be a
waste of time and possibly a detriment to the subject.
After all it is hard enough to get a truthful person
through a good pre-employment test. By indicating to the
subject, by what ever means, that we can't give an
opinion has to cause at least some emotional upheaval
in the subject. Are we wrong to think that this may
affect their psychological set?

What do you think? How do you deal with N.O. tests
right now?

I personally like the L.E.P.E.T. test simply because I
believe that we need to be running some type of
pre-employment test that can be scored. There needs to be
some objectivity to avoid examiners who give their
opinion based on their feelings as opposed to their
actual test results. If they know that another examiner
might score the charts and have a completely different
opinion it might cause them to take a better look at
their charts.

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