Quality Control and Qualifications
Dispute resolution is still a relatively new field, experiencing significant problems
with quality and consistency of approach. The documents reproduced here have been
instrumental in improving quality control, and in distinguishing different dispute
resolution objectives, in a number of organizations ranging from local and national
nonprofits to the U.S. Department of State.
Selection tests based on these documents have been used in a variety of
settings, beginning with labor mediators in Wisconsin and court-connected mediators in the
Boston courts, and more recently extended to such large-scale systems as a systemwide
internal employee mediation program at United Airlines and the mediator accreditation
program of the Law Society of New South Wales, Australia. Selection tests, however, are no
longer the most common use of this analysis of mediation skill. Variations on the
resulting sets of evaluation scales have been adapted for training and other purposes in
many and varied settings — e.g. in a State of Pennsylvania program handling special
education disputes, in the National Center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution of the
Israeli Ministry of Justice, and in a World Bank-financed reform effort for the court
system of Russia.
Croatian translation of an evaluation scale from "On Evaluating
Mediators," used in a 2002 training course. (Click on image for larger view.)
Courtesy of Jerry Barrett.
For program administrators and scholars, the key report here (because it
assessed the impact of most of the others, and made adjustments) is the Methodology
described below. But if you are an attorney or business executive who just needs to pick a
mediator for one case, we recommend that you start with the much simpler Consumer Guide. For the origins of the
train of thinking represented in all of these reports, please see
Five Elements of Mediation and
On Evaluating Mediators. And the "state of the art" in
setting qualifications generally (as of 2001) is described in Credentialing Approaches. The remaining publications on this
page describe a variety of uses of the underlying technology.
- Performance-Based Assessment: a Methodology
The Test Design Project was described by noted scholars as
- "a group of prominent scholars and practitioners" (Editor's Note,
Negotiation Journal, October 1993), who attempted
- "an important and terribly difficult task" (Carrie Menkel-Meadow,
Professor of Law, UCLA) with
- "a clarity and rigor of thought which is all too rare in this area"
(Robert Dingwall, Professor of Social Studies, University of Nottingham, UK.)
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Overview (a quick look, with
links to three excerpts)
Full Text The Methodology was originally published by the
National Institute for Dispute Resolution, and is now available without charge as an Adobe
Acrobat (.pdf) file. (Note: This document is about 1.85 MB, and takes about 6
minutes to download if you have a typical (56K) modem connection.) If you don't have
Acrobat installed, it is available without charge:
Background to the "Methodology"
The publication of Performance-Based Assessment: A Methodology completed the
1990-95 Test Design Project, a
national effort to improve competency testing in dispute resolution. The Methodology
remains the most thorough available document on the technology of quality control in
mediation.
The Test Design Project was directed by Chris Honeyman, who also drafted the
Methodology and its predecessor document, "Interim Guidelines for Selecting
Mediators" (NIDR, 1993.)
- Finding and Hiring Quality Neutrals: What Every Government
Official Needs to Know
Overview (7k)
This publication features an in-depth examination of many of the most difficult issues
facing mediators and dispute resolution program managers in federal agencies. With Chris
Honeyman, Charles Pou, Jr., and ten other contributors. Published 1996 by U.S. EPA and
seven other federal and state agencies. At approx. 70 pages, this document is best viewed
in printed form. A brief overview is followed by the full publication in a
printer-friendly format.
This short Honeyman article is a more recent follow-up
on how the quest for quality looked four years after the Test Design Project concluded. It
appeared in CONSENSUS (MIT Public Disputes Program), Winter 1999.
| "...In 1988 mediator Chris Honeyman began the first effort to isolate
the particular skills required for effective mediation....Honeyman’s test was not
designed as a one-size-fits-all invention, but as a flexible instrument that programs
could modify to fit their particular needs."
from Waldman, E.
(2001) "Credentialing Approaches..." |
This short article by law professor Ellen Waldman assesses the "state
of the art" of efforts to guarantee quality of mediation services. It appeared in
Dispute Resolution Magazine, Fall 2001 (American Bar Association, Section
of Dispute Resolution; Vol. 8, No. 1) and is reproduced here by permission.
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