How WPS Is Building Greater Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Psychological assessments and interventions can unlock potential—on individual and societal levels. As a leading publisher of educational and clinical assessments, we understand that we have a role to play in helping to reduce health and education disparities that disproportionately affect people in historically excluded communities.

Here is a look at a few of the steps we take—some with a long history and others that are more recent initiatives—to make our assessments and our workplace more inclusive.

We’re transparent with testing norms data. 

Like other assessment publishers, we norm our tests to be as broadly representative as possible, using U.S. census data as our guide. You can always find our demographic data in our assessment manuals. If you are not sure about whether a normative sample is a good match for someone you’re evaluating, WPS assessment consultants are available to discuss the data and help you plan the most effective assessment strategy. 

We’re listening to diverse voices.  

We’ve established diverse panels of subject matter experts to help us identify any hidden bias towards or against a variety of groups, from gender to ethnicity and race, culture, socioeconomic status, and more. These panels also review re-released assessments and interventions to ensure that our products evolve to meet the needs of the communities we serve. If you spot a test item that gives you pause, let us know. We value the voices of our partners.  

We know languages matter.

Researchers, educators, and clinicians have long debated whether people should be assessed in their home language or in a language they may still be learning. To broaden available options, WPS has translated products into more than 100 languages. We work with native speakers who are subject matter experts to ensure translations are valid and reliable across languages and dialects. When translating our rating scales into Spanish, we also collect standardization data on Spanish items to ensure equivalency in the norming process.  

We continue to develop cultural competence resources. 

It can be a challenge to adapt assessments to clients of varying backgrounds and abilities. Our assessment consultants aren’t just experts on the assessments we publish. They have decades of experience in occupational therapy, speech–language pathology, special education, and school psychology. They’re available to help you modify and adapt assessments to meet your clients’ varied needs. 

We’ve made our resources accessible to a wider audience.

WPS was the first assessment publisher to add accessibility software to our website, enabling people with varied disabilities to have easier access to our online resources. In addition, many of our assessments are available with both paper and online assessment-scoring options to meet individual needs. Online assessments can make it easier to evaluate people living in rural communities, where limited access contributes to health and education disparities.  

We’ve lowered prices and made many resources free.

We’ve lowered the price of many digital products to make them more affordable. Our Graduate School Alliance program offers free resources to educators who train up-and-coming practitioners. Those practitioners can also receive free assessments and educational resources.  

And for experienced professionals, we offer ongoing education and CE credits through our Learning Management System (LMS) and free assessment and intervention training for organizations with 10 or more people. We also publish our most recent research, webinars, tutorials, and news updates on our website, social media, and YouTube channels so you can find the answers you need. 

We’ve expanded our editorial guidelines.

Our clients are a diverse group of clinicians, practitioners, and educators from across the U.S. and around the globe. Our staff and our published content reflect that diversity. Our editorial staff carefully curates images and uses inclusive language in the content we produce relating to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, economic class, faith, and disability. Every WPS employee participates in substantive diversity, equity, and inclusion training so we can continue building a safe, welcoming, and equity-focused company culture. 

We welcome your feedback.

As we expand our efforts to increase representation, we invite you to join our engaged and diverse team of practitioners to help with data collection for new assessments. You can learn more by contacting our assessment consultants.  

If you’d like to report an issue with bias, please reach out to us.  

WPS is working to make our assessments accessible, relevant, and impactful to as many people as possible. We see you as our partners, and your perspective, lived experience, and feedback are so important to us. Thank you for the good work you to do bring better health and educational outcomes to all the clients you serve.