The writer, who developed and currently is the purveyor of the Personnel Security Standards Psychological Questionnaire (PSSPQ) became aware of a rather unusual (and successful) use of the PSSPQ several months ago.  Readers unfamiliar with the PSSPQ psychometric instrument can find a descriptive explanation of it at: http://www.home.earthlink.net/~lastone2/psspq.html .
An attorney, located in the mid-Atlantic states area, accepted a case in which his client had made application for an employment position that required him to be subsequently granted a high level
(i.e., TS-SCI level) security clearance. The client was eventually informed that he had been denied the needed clearance status.  Seemingly, this individual had lived a quite clean, moral and legal life, or so he believed.  He refused to accept the Governmental decision and secured the services of a local attorney.  It would seem that the attorney had never before had been involved in any type of security clearance question case.  When involved in initial research, the attorney also conducted some Internet informational searches.  It was here that he learned of the PSSPQ 
and subsequently contacted its developer and purveyor, Dr. Stone.  To make a 'long story short,' the attorney made arrangements that  his client be administered the PSSPQ.

    The results of this PSSPQ administration were very clear what they suggested.  All of the PSSPQ's, dozen or so subject-area, sub scales all showed uniformly low standard scores, which indicated little or no past personal history involvement in areas that are focused upon by security clearance adjudicators.  In other words, the attorney's client's PSSPQ results were in strong agreement with this individual's initial declaration to his attorney that he believed he had a personal history that would be consistent with being successfully granted a security clearance.  The PSSPQ's discriminant function prediction formula very strongly suggested that the subject would quite easily be positively adjudicated and would be granted the security clearance status. 
As mentioned above, inspection of the PSSPQ sub scales scores suggested no particular problem areas (e.g., drug/alcohol histories, mental/emotional problems, financial difficulties, foreign connections, etc.).

     The involved attorney shortly following communication of the PSSPQ scoring information that he had checked out his clients protestations of 'innocence' and such was strongly supported in a uniform fashion.  In no uncertain terms, he communicated that he strongly believed that his client had been clearly wronged by the Governmental decision not to grant clearance status.  He then proceeded to file a protest through Federal Court channels and requested that his client either be reevaluated or that the existing evaluative information be readjudicated.  A readjudication was subsequently accomplished, unfortunately it occurred over a year later.  The result of the governmentally done readjudication, interestingly enough, did result in a complete reversal, the subject individual was then informed that he had been granted the clearance status.

     No real clear explanation of what had caused the initial clearance denial decision was seemingly ever, according to the involved attorney, communicated by Government officials.  The attorney did though communicate to Dr. Stone that, in a telephone conversation with a Government official regarding the case, he sort of sensed that some mix-up had occurred regarding his client's history of illegal drug usage.  The attorney said that he believes that his client's background information had perhaps become switched with background information from some other individual who was being adjudicated.  Apparently, the Government is loathe to admit having made mistakes and if and when they do, their usual response is characterized by what is known in journalistic circles as "stonewalling."  Such seems to have been a correct description in this described case. 

     In the case described in the previous paragraphs, it became clear that the prediction prescribed by the PSSPQ regarding the involved subject's ability to be granted high level security clearance status was quite correct.  In the past few years, Dr. Stone  has administered the PSSPQ to what can be considered to be a large group of persons.  Although not at all frequently observed, a quite small number of test takers did seemingly attempt to deny having been involved with past, illegal, immoral, or otherwise questionable behaviors and statuses; in all such cases their highly elevated scorings on the PSSPQ's LIE or response deception scale were seen.  In other words, the instrument's dissimulation or validity scale rather clearly identified this small number of test-takers  as having been very prone to, as known in psychometric circles, as "fake good" their responses to some or many of the instrument's items.

     In contrast, the subject individual who had been initially erroneously denied a clearance had obtained a markedly low score on the PSSPQ's LIE Scale.  In other words, he looked like a person who candidly and honestly responded to the instrument's items.  He did not exhibit either a "fake good" nor a "fake bad" response style.  Actually, a purposely employed "fake bad" response style has almost never been seen in response to the PSSPQ.  Interestingly enough, it has been observed and noted that persons whose religion is that of the Latter Day Saints (i.e., Mormons), as well as active practicing members of Alcoholics Anonymous, have some tendency to be perhaps overly honest when describing themselves via PSSPQ items.  However, they only have a tendency in this direction and not to an extent whereby they could be thought to show "faking bad" response styles.

    Research has shown that Governmental adjudicative decision making regarding the initial granting/denial of security clearance status may not have overly high reliability.  In other words, such decision making may not be overly consistent across variable matters such as adjudicators, time, and candidates position/status.  Some adjudicators may be more demanding than other adjudicators regarding the granting of clearance status.  The same adjudicator may vary his adjudication standards over a passage of time.  Final adjudication decisions may be affected depending upon whether the subject individual has friends in high governmental position, what job the candidate is slated to fill, and perhaps even individual matters such as age, gender, religion, race, physical appearance, etc.  Stone has previously found psychometric evidence that the reliability coefficient of the security clearance adjudication process is only about. 0.656.  This level of reliability, if associated with a psychological test would be normally regarded as not being overly high.  By comparison, the reliability of the PSSPQ test has been repeatedly found to be about 0.94.  Published research that demonstrates a not too desirable level of reliability for the Governmental adjudication process regarding security clearance decision; such can be found in Stone (2003); it can also be found on the Internet at:  http://www.home.earthlink.net/~lastone2/psspqreliabilityvalidity.html.

     It should not be surprising to find evidence that suggests that the Governments' security clearance adjudicators decision process is most likely not overly reliable.  Good supportive evidence of this is found in the fact that throughout the Country, there are found attorneys (and even sizable law firms) whose sole specialty is to represent citizen claimants who want to appeal or challenge the Government's decisions of denial pertaining to granting of security clearances.  A sizable cadre of high paid legal experts would not exist unless there were sufficient demand for their narrowly focused services.

     Since 2002, Dr. Stone has been commercially offering PSSPQ administration and results from same.  During this time, a large number of PSSPQ administrations have taken place.  Initial validation and cross validation research suggested that the PSSPQ was about 95+% in its accuracy to correctly predict success or failure to eventually be granted high level security clearance status.  Normally, the PSSPQ is administered to persons (who themselves request this testing) prior to any Governmentally made adjudication decision has ever taken place.  Individuals are curious as to whether they stand a good or poor chance for ever being granted a high level security clearance were they to try for (or accept) employment that requires such a clearance status to be granted. 

     In this present case situation, the subject individual had already been informed by the Government that he had been denied the needed security clearance status and he refused to believe that the Government's decision was correct and valid.  His attorney seemingly believed that if his client did 'take' the PSSPQ and the results supported his client's belief position, then these results might be of some value in the event that an appeal of the Government's decision took place.  Apparently, the results from the PSSPQ testing were perhaps helpful in that they helped the subject individual convince his attorney that the Government made an incorrect decision, possibly based on some time of error or the like.  The subject individual's attorney has informed the writer of this present article that since he had, at the beginning of the case, no real prior experience in assisting clients with respect to security clearance denials, that he initially tried to grasp at any straw and that his instructions to his client to 'take' the PSSPQ would fall in this category.  He further commented that if he ever again became involved in a similar type case, he would encourage any such client to be administered the PSSPQ as he believed acquiring the type of information produced by the PSSPQ could potentially be helpful in motivating Governmental officials to some response action.
 

     More and more evidence, such as was characterized by the facts in the presently described case, seems to suggest that some sizable number of Governmental security clearance adjudication decisions may be associated with a unexpected amount of error.  Actually, when one thinks about it, the suspected degree of error encountered should surprise no one.  The security clearance evaluation/adjudication process takes place almost totally within huge Governmental bureaucracies.  The warning here is that one should not initially accept that Governmental decisions of granting/denial regarding security clearance adjudications as always being correct and valid and not subject to questioning and perhaps even formal appeal.

     At least, based upon the single case described in the current article, deployment of the results obtained from an administration of the PSSPQ instrument might be helpful in encouraging Governmental officials to consider another look at their evidence/data that was use to arrive at a 'denial' decision regarding a potential granting of a security clearance. 

Stone, L. A., (April 2003) Estimations of Reliability and Validity for the Personnel Security
Standards Psychological Questionnaire (PSSPQ.  Internet address:
http://www. home.earthlink.net/~lastone2/psspqreliabilityvalidity.html