The Priest as Test Administrator in Attitude Research

Test administrators or experimenters have been recognized as an important variable in psychological research (Masling, 1960; McGuigan, 1963; Rosenthal, 1964, 1976; Winkel Johnson, 1976; Barber, 1976). Attention has been given to such factors as the test administrator's age, sex, race, and attitude toward the testing situation (Stevenson Harris, 1971; Silverman, et al., 1972; Sattler, et al., 1972; Jensen, 1974). The influence of the priest as psychologist or test administrator has received little research attention (Lee, 1972). Walker and Firetto (1965) demonstrate that there is a significant difference in responses to certain psychological measures when these tests are administered by a priest. Moreover, it seems likely that the influence of the priest on subject responses will be different in religious and non-religious groups (Burtt & Falkenberg, 1941), and that it will vary also according to denominational allegiance (Brown & Pallant, 1962) as well as according to sex, age, and geographical location oftestee (Dumoulin, 1971, Jahoda & Harrison, 1975). This observation might be an important factor in interpreting research regarding the psychology of the religious development of the school child. Reviews of research in this area indicate that some considerable part of this research has been conducted by clergymen (Strommen, 1971). If it can be demonstrated that the priest as test administrator in educational research has a direct influence on subject responses, it becomes important to ask clerical researchers to state in their research reports whether or not their status as a priest was known to the subjects. In order to test this observation a small experiment was established using an attitude scale recently employed by a clerical researcher to monitor attitudes towards religion among school children (Francis, 1977). The experiment compares the effect of lay and clerical test administration upon the subjects' responses and resultant attitude scores.