Test Design Project
The Test Design Project (1990-95) was a formative effort to design better selection, training and evaluation tools for the emerging mediation "industry." The project was directed by Chris Honeyman, now managing partner of Convenor. The working group included internationally recognized experts in many varieties of dispute resolution; representatives of most of the national membership organizations in the field; and several representatives of the courts. The project was described by reviewers as
The project assisted numerous official bodies responsible for the design and evaluation of a number of mediation programs, including the U.S. Department of State; Administrative Conference of the U.S. (Washington, DC); Legal Aid Board (London, England); Massachusetts Office of Dispute Resolution; the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution; and other government agencies, court systems and membership organizations.
The project's concluding product was Performance-Based Assessment: A Methodology, for use in selecting, training and evaluating mediators. Published by the National Institute for Dispute Resolution, the Methodology lays out some competing perceptions of what a mediator is supposed to do, and offers performance-based tools for improving and assessing competence in each of them.
- "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).
The project assisted numerous official bodies responsible for the design and evaluation of a number of mediation programs, including the U.S. Department of State; Administrative Conference of the U.S. (Washington, DC); Legal Aid Board (London, England); Massachusetts Office of Dispute Resolution; the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution; and other government agencies, court systems and membership organizations.
The project's concluding product was Performance-Based Assessment: A Methodology, for use in selecting, training and evaluating mediators. Published by the National Institute for Dispute Resolution, the Methodology lays out some competing perceptions of what a mediator is supposed to do, and offers performance-based tools for improving and assessing competence in each of them.
From NIDR News, July-August 1995
Test Design Project concludes with publication of new Methodology
In 1990, a project to improve competency testing in dispute resolution began with no budget, no name and a steering committee of five: Linda Singer, Frank Sander, Michael Lewis, Howard Bellman and director Chris Honeyman. Later named the Test Design Project, that effort now concludes with NIDR's publication of Performance-Based Assessment: A Methodology, for use in selecting, training and evaluating mediators.
The project grew to include a number of distinguished participants, and the Methodology is the latest of many products that resulted. Among them were a $50,000 study, financed by the National Science Foundation, which spurred a North America-wide four-organization initiative to create a certification test for experienced family mediators, and an array of program-specific designs for selection and training methods, ranging from the San Diego Mediation Center to the U.S. State Department. The project has also influenced other initiatives, among them the Alaska Judicial Council's Consumer Guide to Selecting a Mediator, SPIDR's Sourcebook on qualifications and quality control, and a manual for training in-house mediators produced jointly by three federal agencies.
In 1993, NIDR published the Interim Guidelines for Selecting Mediators, the Project's first attempt at consensus definitions of mediators' functions, skills and selection methods. The Project solicited critiques of this work, which resulted in ten Negotiation Journal articles and many more discussions elsewhere. The 1995 Methodology is the project's response. Considerably longer than the Interim Guidelines it replaces, it includes tools for programs which wish to improve training methods rather than engage in rigorous selection, and gives special attention to concerns for the field's diversity.