Missionary attrition together with the problem of institutional child sexual abuse in the Church has highlighted the importance of a standardized psychological assessment process for mission and ministry candidates. This scoping review aimed to examine peer-reviewed publications, from 2001 to 2021, which focused on the psychological assessment of ministry and cross-cultural mission candidates, to find knowledge gaps that exist. Using scoping review guidelines, 6,739 references were identified and 2,476 duplicates were removed. A further 4,254 references were excluded because they did not meet screening criteria. A total of nine high-quality articles remained, together with five articles that were added based on the bibliography of these references. This scoping review found the few papers published either focused on the use of personality tests or made recommendations about how these assessments should be conducted. The studies reported that candidates for ministry and mission in US samples have normative personality profiles regardless of age or ethnicity. Other papers reviewed knowledge and opinion and highlighted the need for screening for psychosexual development and to prevent attrition in mission and ministry roles. The overall dearth of publications suggested a need for more international research into how to standardize and utilize psychological assessments.

Psychological assessments are routinely conducted by many cross-cultural mission organizations when recruiting candidates. This qualitative research aimed to clarify the purpose of these assessments, to provide a way forward to improving them. It is part of a larger project which has investigated the use of psychological assessments in the Australasian region. A subsample of six chief executive officers (CEOs), six-member care specialists, and six professional assessors consented to a 1-hour interview about the purpose of psychological assessments. Thematic analysis was used to extract the key themes, and the data from each group were triangulated to form overarching themes. The results suggested each group approached purpose from their professional standpoint. CEOs focused on missiology, member care specialists on pastoral care, and assessors on psychological frameworks for understanding candidates. Five key purposes were identified for these assessments: (1) screening risk, (2) candidate self-awareness and growth, (3) fit for role, (4) discerning call, and (5) normalizing prevention of harm. These assessments are a key part of the discernment process for ministry. They need to be improved based on our increased understanding of the purpose they can potentially serve in ameliorating harm to people who volunteer for cross-cultural work.

This study surveyed psychological assessment practice for cross-cultural mission candidates in Australasia. It hypothesized that there would be a difference in knowledge about assessments between mission chief executive officers (CEOs), member care specialists, and psychological assessors. Sixty-nine mission organization staff and nine independent assessors responded to an online survey about psychological assessment, compliance with Australian legislation and government recommendations, and the use of psychometric tests. The results suggested that pre-field psychological assessments were a vital part of member care. Assessors were more likely to report organizations struggled to apply the results to candidate selection, that assessments were used to screen out people with mental illness, and were looking for different key attributes in candidates compared with organizations. The key areas that were identified as being important to assess were strong interpersonal skills, physical and psychological resilience, and contentment with current relationship status. The study also identified several systemic problems in relation to the focus of assessments, payment, measurement, and whether reports complied with law and government recommendations, and previous recommendations in the mission literature. This study suggested a need for a more standardized purposeful approach to conducting pre-field psychological assessments for cross-cultural mission candidates.