Chapter 15
Using Tests in Organizational Settings
History
• Walter Dill Scott (1915) “The Scientific Selection
of Salesmen” – proposed that employers use group
tests for personnel selection.
• Scott’s influence led to Army Alpha & Beta testing
during WW I. Those were discontinued following
WWI.
• Employment testing, however, continued when
Millicent Pond (1927) studied the selection and
placement of apprentice metal workers.
• Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory originated
from this early work.
• The Psychological Corporation organized by J.
McKeen Cattell began.
History (continued)
• WW II: Army General Classification Test
(AGCT) developed by Bingham (chief
psychologist of War Dept.).
• Multiple commercial applications have since been
developed.
• 1964 Civil Rights Act stimulated interest in
insuring that tests were valid and fair.
• 1978 – Uniform Guidelines for Employee
Selection were developed.
Pre-employment Testing
The Employment Interview
Traditional – “getting to know you
function.” …Biased by sex, age, race, and
physical attractiveness.
-This bias has been attributed more to
the interviewer than to the process.
Pre-employment Testing (cont.)
The Employment Interview
Structured – standardized, allows scoring. Higher
inter-rater reliability, internal consistency, and
concurrent validity.
– Focus on behavior – what you have done or can do
rather than how you feel about…
– Each candidate receives the same questions in the same
order.
– The questions require a job analysis covering important
job functions and duties (content validity); therefore job
related.
– E.g, Human Resources Professional Job Interview
Performance Tests
• High-fidelity tests replicate the job setting as
realistically as possible; e.g., flight simulator.
– Assessment Centers – large scale replications of the job that
require candidates to solve typical job problems by role
playing or demonstrating proficiency.
• Low-fidelity tests simulate the job task using a written,
verbal, or visual description.
– Video tests – candidates are shown typical job situations and
asked to choose his/her response from multiple choice
format.
• Validity of performance tests in predicting job
performance =.54
• Have high content validity, and are job related.
Tests for Specific Types of Jobs
E.g.,
Personality Inventories
• Examine traits found useful in predicting
job success: conscientiousness,
extraversion, emotional stability, etc.
E.g., The 16PF Questionnaire
(developed by Raymond Cattell) gives a
profile.
• Poor predictors of job success generally.
Five-factor Model of Personality
(NEO Personality Inventory)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
NEUROTICISM
EXTRAVERSION
OPENNESS TO EXPERIENCE
AGREEABLENESS
CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
The Hogan Personality Inventory
(HPI)
• Adjustment
• Ambition
• Sociability
• Likeability
• Prudence
• Intellectance
• School success
(Validity key to detect careless or random
responding.)
The Hogan Personality Inventory
Predictive Validity:
• Sociability predicts sales revenue (r=.51)
• Prudence predicts supervisors’ ratings of
conscientiousness (r=.22)
• School Success predicts training
performance (r=.34-.55)
Integrity Testing
Two categories:
– Physiological measures
– Paper-and-pencil tests
• Physiological – polygraph tests - problem with
false positives (mistakenly classifying innocent
takers as guilty) and poor predictive validity.
• The Employee Polygraph Protection Act lf
1988 forbids the use of the polygraph as an
employment test. Interestingly, employers
providing security services and government
agencies are exempt from this law!
• Paper-and-pencil integrity tests predict
counterproductive behaviors (.29-.39).
• But highly susceptible to faking.
Legal Constraints
• 1978 Uniform Guidelines for Employee Selection
catalog “best practices” to promote fairness and legal
defensibility of employment practices. (Note:
Congress did not pass the Guidelines and therefore they
are not federal law.)
• Any process that is used to make a hiring decision is
defined as a “test.” Includes application forms,
reference checks, letters of reference and tests.
• All employment tests must be job-related and based on
a job analysis.
• “Adverse impact” is the exclusion of a disproportionate
number of persons belonging to a protected class based
on race, gender, age, etc. In these cases, alternative
methods for assessing job candidates must be found.
Performance Impairment Tests
• An alternative to chemical analysis for the presence of
drugs.
• Can use a simulation to detect impairment in motor
skills or hand-eye coordination (similar to a video
game).
• Compare to the individual’s baseline.
• Can be done quickly and easily in the workplace as
opposed to taking the employee off the work site for
drug testing.
Performance Appraisal
• Ranking employees (best to worst)
– Forced distribution to get a normal curve, using
categories such as “outstanding,” “above average,” etc.
– prevents the ranker from assigning all people to one
category.
• Rating employees
– graphic rating scale- each of the scales represents a
dimension, such as quality or quantity of work. Guided
by anchors.
– Behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS) use onthe-job behaviors as anchors for the rating scale.
– Behavioral checklist - rating frequency of important
behaviors.
Performance Appraisal
• Rating Errors
– Leniency errors – giving all employees better ratings
than they deserve.
– Severity errors – giving all employees worse ratings
than they deserve.
– Central-tendency errors – using only the middle of the
rating scale and ignoring highest and lowest scale
categories.
– Halo effect – when raters let their judgment on one
dimension influence judgments on other dimensions
(ie.,giving low rating on quality and quantity of work
when employee met standards for quantity of work)
• 3600 feedback: ratings from supervisors, peers,
subordinates, or customers.