The Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology, or EPPP, is the licensing exam that all fifty U.S. states and all Canadian provinces use to ensure that only competent psychologists practice in those jurisdictions. The EPPP is not the exam to get into a psychology school. The EPPP is instead the exam for psychology graduates to take for state or provincial licensure. Just over eighty percent of EPPP takers pass the exam. Psychologists holding a doctoral degree pass at a much higher rate than psychologists holding only a master's degree, of which just over fifty percent pass. Passing the EPPP is not, though, an examinee's only challenge. Candidates must also avoid misconduct or other issues when applying and qualifying for the EPPP and actually taking the exam. If EPPP test administrators have withheld or voided your EPPP score on misconduct allegations, or you face a similar issue sitting for and passing the EPPP, retain premier school discipline defense attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento for your winning representation. You need help to preserve your enormous investment in your psychology education and your valuable opportunity to practice.
Who Develops and Administers the EPPP?
The Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards is a private nonprofit organization responsible for designing and administering the EPPP throughout the United States and Canada. Since its founding in 1961, the Association's goal has been to facilitate the professional practice mobility of psychologists through standardized licensing exams. The Association provides other services to psychologists, but administering the EPPP remains its core function. The Association's Examination Committee, appointed by the Association's board based on psychology specialty credentials, constructs the EPPP. A separate Item Development Committee writes the individual EPPP questions, which the Association includes by using fifty unscored pre-test questions on the exam.
What Is the EPPP's Content and Format?
The EPPP covers eight content areas, including the biological bases of behavior, cognitive bases of behavior, social and cultural bases of behavior, growth and lifespan development, assessment and diagnosis, treatment, intervention, prevention and supervision, research methods and statistics, and ethical, legal, and professional issues. Each content area counts for between eight percent and fifteen percent of the EPPP's total score. The EPPP has 225 multiple-choice questions of which the Association scores 175 items. The other fifty items are pre-test items that do not count toward the candidate's score. Although the EPPP involves only 175 counted items, the Association scales candidate scores between 200 and 800, while considering 500 to be a passing score. Each jurisdiction decides what passing score to accept. Most use the recommended 500 while permitting supervised practice on a 450 score. Examinees who fail to pass may retake the EPPP up to four times within one year. Because such a high percentage of examinees pass the EPPP on a first or subsequent try, passing the exam may not be your biggest challenge. If misconduct allegations are holding up your EPPP score, retain national school discipline defense attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento to help you address and overcome those allegations.
Who Must Take the EPPP?
Psychologists desiring to practice in a U.S. state or Canadian province must take the EPPP, gain a passing score, and otherwise qualify for licensure. New psychology graduates constitute a large part of the EPPP candidate pool. Experienced psychologists who already hold a license in one or more jurisdictions also take the EPPP to qualify for licensure in another jurisdiction. Thus, the EPPP serves both to qualify psychologists initially and periodically requalify them if they move from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. It took about twenty years for jurisdictions to adopt the EPPP after the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards first promulgated the EPPP in the early 1960s, but now all states and provinces require it. No matter where in the U.S. or Canada a psychologist chooses to practice, licensing bodies will require the psychologist to take and pass the EPPP. If misconduct charges or other irregularities are holding up your ability to sit for the exam or obtain your score after the exam, retain the attorney advisor representation you need to get your psychology license. National school discipline defense advisor Joseph D. Lento and the Lento Law Firm's defense team are available for your representation.
EPPP Misconduct
As is the case for any standardized test used for licensing purposes, and indeed for most academic exams, the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards administering the EPPP has strict terms and conditions, the violation of which may result in misconduct charges and sanctions. The Association publishes those terms and conditions in the EPPP Candidate Handbook. Many of those terms and conditions involve routine testing protocols. But some terms and conditions address what the Association calls “irregularities” in qualifying for the test, misusing EPPP materials, cheating on the exam, disrupting the exam for others, or other violations of the exam's integrity. Irregularities or misconduct can occur either inside the exam during its administration or outside the exam during the application and preparation process or after exam administration. Retain national school discipline defense attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento to help you resolve your EPPP issue.
EPPP General Commitments on Integrity
The EPPP Candidate Handbook includes a Candidate Acknowledgment Statement that requires examinees to preserve the exam's integrity. The Association publishes that Candidate Acknowledgment Statement again on the computer screen at the test center to ensure that no examinee misses its conditions and obligations. The Statement first commits examinees to respect the EPPP's integrity: “I have an ethical duty to protect the security and validity of the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP).” The Statement then asserts the sanctions for breaching exam integrity: “My participation in any irregularity occurring prior to, during, or subsequent to this examination … may result in termination of my participation, invalidation of the results of my examination, or other appropriate action.” While the Statement includes a brief list of potential irregularities, that list is non-exclusive. Any conduct that the Association deems irregular may result in sanctions.
EPPP Violations Inside the Exam
The Candidate Acknowledgment Statement within the EPPP Candidate Handbook refers more specifically to several potential violations that could occur inside the exam, at the test center during the exam. Those violations include giving unauthorized information or aid to another during the exam or obtaining unauthorized information or aid from another during the exam. Those violations also include stealing or attempting to steal exam items from the test center, copying or otherwise reproducing any part of the exam, or memorizing and reporting exam items, topics, or content. While the Candidate Acknowledgment Statement does not specifically list other irregularities, the terms and conditions for taking the EPPP suggest other potential violations including someone else taking the exam for you, you taking the exam for someone else, presenting false identification at the exam site, bringing unauthorized materials into the exam, failing or refusing to follow a test center staff member's instructions, disturbing other examinees with noises or motions, entering or leaving the exam room without permission, and damaging test center furnishings or equipment.
EPPP Violations Outside the Exam
The Candidate Acknowledgment Statement within the EPPP Candidate Handbook makes clear that disclosing exam content outside the exam is the Association's major concern with misconduct outside the exam testing center. The Statement expressly warns, “The dissemination of the content of the EPPP to any person, organization, company, or other entity in any manner shall constitute a breach of professional ethics and theft of the exam. The EPPP score may be voided if any person is found guilty of such a violation. The Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards (ASPPB) may prohibit the candidate from future access to the EPPP.” Thus, recording, storing, using, selling, sharing, or otherwise transmitting EPPP content before or after the exam would constitute sanctionable misconduct. Other sanctionable misconduct outside the exam could include violating the EPPP's application and identification protocols such as submitting false or inaccurate information on the application or procuring or providing false identification to another to take the exam.
EPPP Misconduct Adjudication Procedures
The way that candidates discover misconduct allegations typically involves a delay in the jurisdiction receiving your EPPP test score or a discrepancy between your on-site score and the jurisdiction's official score. The EPPP Candidate Handbook indicates that the Association gives examinees their score at the test center when they complete their exam. You'll know your unofficial score when you leave the test center. That on-site score is the Association's only usual communication with the examinee. But examinees cannot use that on-site score for license applications. The Association instead reports the official score to the examinee's licensing authority within ten days of the exam. The EPPP Candidate Handbook warns that “[t]he score will not change except in rare cases such as an exam irregularity or suspected violation of security protocols.” Another part of the EPPP Candidate Handbook discloses that the Association uses both test center observation and subsequent statistical analysis to discover irregularities. The Association then uses that information to evaluate whether disqualifying misconduct occurred. The Association does not further disclose its adjudication procedures. But the state licensing body withholding or rejecting your scores must generally provide you with these licensing disciplinary procedures:
- written notice of the misconduct charges sufficient to understand the allegations and evidence that supports them;
- the right to retain an attorney advisor of your choice to assist throughout the proceedings;
- the right to submit your own observations and evidence, including other witness information, to contest the charges;
- the right to an independent and unbiased hearing officer or committee on the charges;
- your right to appear before that hearing officer or committee to present your own evidence and challenge the allegations and evidence of misconduct;
- your right to compel witnesses to attend and to cross-examine adverse witnesses;
- your right to receive and review the licensing authority's misconduct evidence before the hearing;
- your right to a written decision on all charges and a record of the hearing for appeal review, and
- your right to appeal any adverse decision to the jurisdiction's courts under procedures for appeals from an administrative body.
EPPP Misconduct Consequences
The EPPP Candidate Handbook makes clear that the consequences for irregular conduct relating to the exam include not getting your score and not getting to take EPPP again: “The EPPP score may be voided if any person is found guilty of such a violation. The Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards (ASPPB) may prohibit the candidate from future access to the EPPP.” The EPPP Candidate Handbook explains further that the test center staff may terminate your exam and that Association officials may invalidate any score, along with taking other appropriate action like reporting the irregularity to your state's licensing authority. Civil liability for damages to the Association from the disclosure of test items, and even criminal charges for material theft, are other potential consequences the EPPP Candidate Handbook mentions. An examinee committing serious misconduct won't be able to obtain a license, meaning loss of jobs and career. Misconduct findings can have other collateral consequences well beyond the professional license and career. Retain national school discipline defense attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento both to defend and defeat the misconduct charge and avoid these serious collateral consequences.
EPPP Appeals, Litigation, and Alternative Special Relief
Psychologists seeking state licensure may have other substantial constitutional, statutory, regulatory, and contractual rights on which to rely to challenge and overcome an EPPP misconduct or irregularity charge. Depending on your jurisdiction, you should, for instance, have the opportunity to have limited court review of the decision of your state licensing body based on EPPP misconduct allegations. You may have other litigation theories and opportunities. You may also have other avenues for alternative special relief, either through the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards' oversight channels or similar oversight opportunities within your state licensing body. The Association staff, for instance, includes directors of exam services and professional affairs, and the Association and your state licensing body may have general counsel, outside retained counsel, or similar oversight officials. National school discipline defense attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento has negotiated successfully with such oversight officials in many cases for the candidate's reinstatement. Don't give up without retaining attorney advisor Lento to explore those alternatives for special relief.
Premier Defense Attorney Advisor Available
National school discipline defense attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento has successfully represented hundreds of professionals and students nationwide on misconduct issues like those presented in an EPPP misconduct dispute. Trust attorney advisor Lento to make the difference in your case. Achieve your best possible outcome by retaining the best available representation. Call 888.535.3686 or go online now to retain attorney advisor Lento and the Lento Law Firm's defense team.
