Testing people at work
Smith & Smith 2005
Chapters: 1,2,3,4,5,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,22,23,27 + Interim exam: 9-12
H1: Competence in occupational testing
Psychometric tests (powerful measures of human characteristics) have four main uses:
1. Selection
- Measure people’s characteristics in some way that their characteristics can be matched
to requirements of the job.
- Traditional interviews are very inaccurate.
- Psychometric tests are among the best methods of predicting how well a candidate will
cope with training and performing the job.
- Intelligence tests have the highest validity in overall job performance criteria.
- Selection paradigm: tests do not result in accurate selection along with other scientific
methods, in a systematic approach.
- Selection paradigm:
a) Preparation: job analysis, person specification, attracting candidates
b) Psychometrics: basic statistics
c) Assessment tools: method of selection
d) Using tests: test administration, norming and profiling, interpretation, feedback of
results
2. Vocational tests and Career advice (3)
Tests in career guidance (needs of individuals) and development (needs of individuals and
organization)
Wider mix of tests: ability, personality, interests, values
Longer testing sessions
Testing in smaller groups or individual basis
More comprehensive feedback
Within constellation of other activities
When is guidance given?
1. Entry into work or training
2. Part of personal development program
3. Redundancy package: assess the individual’s suitability for future jobs.
- Tests in selection (needs of organization): ability and personality
4. Tests used in research:
Research into tests
Basic research into other scientific phenomena
Applied research
Are less likely to result in irreversible decisions that affect people’s lives and fewer
ethical issues are involved.
Less precise tests can be used because the results of many individuals are
aggregated
Mean scores of groups are much more stable than the scores of individuals
Tests in research are inhibited by money and distribution.
5. Tests in workforce audits
- Tests are used to calibrate other aspects of an organization’s human resource system
such as an appraisal system.
H2: Job analysis and person specifications
Job analysis requires effort, makes selection more precise and saves resources in the long
run. It can be used for other purposes: training needs analysis, organizational design, job
grading and employee development.
Job analysis:
,- The main purpose of the job should be identified and it should be confirmed that the job
makes a worthwhile contribution to the organization’s business plan.
- Purpose: achieve an objective understanding of a job, so that critical skills and
performance can be identified.
- Job analysis is concerned with what is done or achieved and describes external factors
and data:
Job title and grade
List of key result areas
Workplace location
Hours of work and days of work
Holiday entitlement
Rates and method of pay
Direct supervisors
Assets controlled
Relationships with others
Other benefits, such as a pension
- Ask superior and other people who doe they same job to describe the tasks + data from
documents -> job analysis is circulated for comments.
Discussing the job: non-technical approach
- Individual interviews: several viewpoint and flexibility & subjective and time-consuming,
gold-bricking (= inflate the description of the job).
- Group interviews: less time-consuming, synergy between participants & group dynamics
and subjectivity
- Group of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs): time efficiently, appropriate in green fields,
resistant to legal attack, less likely to be influenced by gold-bricking.
Observing and performing: non-technical
- Observing the job: direct access to a wide range of information, comprehensive results,
less subject to gold-bricking & time-consuming, subjective, observer alters job
performance, distraction by the worker, not every job can be analysed in this way.
- Job performance: low possibilities of gold-bricking & only for relative simple jobs that
require short training, not applicable if novice job analyst could inflict damage (e.g.
surgery).
Written records: non-technical
- The dairy method: ask incumbents to keep a log of their activities. Little preparation,
flexible format & different response styles, start when deadline is close, gold-bricking,
missing tasks, time-consuming to analyse, subjective.
Quantitative methods
1. Task lists: send each incumbent a questionnaire that contains biographical questions
and ask them to list ten tasks that they have done in their job during the past two weeks.
2. Checklists: ask incumbents to tick those tasks that are part of their job. Results are
analysed in terms of frequencies.
3. Inventories: change the items of a checklist into a likert-scale. Easy to analyse and can
obtain useful results with quite small samples.
4. Standard inventories:
a) Position analysis questionnaire (PAQ)
- Each of the 162 scales is benchmarked with explicit examples of what a rating
represents
- The database contains results for hundreds of jobs
- Broad spectrum job analysis inventory and is not particularly suited to the analysis of
managerial or professional jobs.
b) Work Profiling System: managerial, service, and manual workers
c) Occupational Analysis Inventory (OAI): 622 descriptions of work activities and
conditions, which are grouped into five main areas.
d) Job Components Inventory (JCI)
, e) Functional Job Analysis (FJA): method of analysing jobs using a controlled vocabulary, in
which activities are grouped according to whether an incumbent is dealing with people,
data, or things.
Person specifications
- Statements about competencies form the second important document in selection: the
person specification.
- Job analysis = a task-oriented job analysis, a person specification = a worker-oriented
job analysis.
1. Straightforward approach to person specifications
Rodger’s Seven Point Plan: a interview plan that covers most of the characteristics that
are relevant for work (list the competencies as essential and desirable)
- Physical make-up
- Attainments
- General intelligence: the ability to identify key aspects of a problem, the deduction of
the relationship between the different parts of the problem and the ability to deduce the
next step in sequence.
- Special aptitudes
- Interests
- Disposition
- Home circumstances
2. Sophisticated ways of producing person specifications
- When a job is very important or done by many employees.
- Four sophisticated approaches:
Repertory Grids: the most objective and scientific way of deriving person
specifications from a job analysis and the method usually proceeds in three stages
(triadic elicitation): task analysis, eliciting competencies, grading the tasks of the
competencies.
o First stage: list of most important tasks
o Second stage: three tasks are chosen and asked is to consider the
knowledge, skills, and abilities or other human characteristics to complete
each task successfully. SMEs determine which two tasks are most similar.
o Third stage: a grid is constructes (tasks along the top, skills down the side)
and incumbents grade each task on the extent to which it requires the skill
or characteristic.
o Advantages: information not attained by analyst, expressed in words used
by incumbents, gives a quantitative guide, the difficulty of tasks are
estimated, allows the skills needed for individual tasks to be specified.
Empirical Job Component Analysis: empirical date has been collected for job
analysis questionnaires such as the Position Analysis Questionnaire.
Expert Systems: it is expensive to attain data from a empirical job component
analysis, therefore show results to experts and ask experts to estimate the skills
needed for various tasks.
Intuitive Method
Competencies: the skills, knowledge, and abilities that are needed to perform a job
Fairness:
- Involve members of minority group
- Job analysis should be scrutinized to see whether the same goals can be achieved in
different ways.
- A person specification is unfair when it demands a characteristic which is not actually
necessary in order to perform a job but that differentiates two groups of people (e.g.
length of police officer).
Smith & Smith 2005
Chapters: 1,2,3,4,5,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,22,23,27 + Interim exam: 9-12
H1: Competence in occupational testing
Psychometric tests (powerful measures of human characteristics) have four main uses:
1. Selection
- Measure people’s characteristics in some way that their characteristics can be matched
to requirements of the job.
- Traditional interviews are very inaccurate.
- Psychometric tests are among the best methods of predicting how well a candidate will
cope with training and performing the job.
- Intelligence tests have the highest validity in overall job performance criteria.
- Selection paradigm: tests do not result in accurate selection along with other scientific
methods, in a systematic approach.
- Selection paradigm:
a) Preparation: job analysis, person specification, attracting candidates
b) Psychometrics: basic statistics
c) Assessment tools: method of selection
d) Using tests: test administration, norming and profiling, interpretation, feedback of
results
2. Vocational tests and Career advice (3)
Tests in career guidance (needs of individuals) and development (needs of individuals and
organization)
Wider mix of tests: ability, personality, interests, values
Longer testing sessions
Testing in smaller groups or individual basis
More comprehensive feedback
Within constellation of other activities
When is guidance given?
1. Entry into work or training
2. Part of personal development program
3. Redundancy package: assess the individual’s suitability for future jobs.
- Tests in selection (needs of organization): ability and personality
4. Tests used in research:
Research into tests
Basic research into other scientific phenomena
Applied research
Are less likely to result in irreversible decisions that affect people’s lives and fewer
ethical issues are involved.
Less precise tests can be used because the results of many individuals are
aggregated
Mean scores of groups are much more stable than the scores of individuals
Tests in research are inhibited by money and distribution.
5. Tests in workforce audits
- Tests are used to calibrate other aspects of an organization’s human resource system
such as an appraisal system.
H2: Job analysis and person specifications
Job analysis requires effort, makes selection more precise and saves resources in the long
run. It can be used for other purposes: training needs analysis, organizational design, job
grading and employee development.
Job analysis:
,- The main purpose of the job should be identified and it should be confirmed that the job
makes a worthwhile contribution to the organization’s business plan.
- Purpose: achieve an objective understanding of a job, so that critical skills and
performance can be identified.
- Job analysis is concerned with what is done or achieved and describes external factors
and data:
Job title and grade
List of key result areas
Workplace location
Hours of work and days of work
Holiday entitlement
Rates and method of pay
Direct supervisors
Assets controlled
Relationships with others
Other benefits, such as a pension
- Ask superior and other people who doe they same job to describe the tasks + data from
documents -> job analysis is circulated for comments.
Discussing the job: non-technical approach
- Individual interviews: several viewpoint and flexibility & subjective and time-consuming,
gold-bricking (= inflate the description of the job).
- Group interviews: less time-consuming, synergy between participants & group dynamics
and subjectivity
- Group of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs): time efficiently, appropriate in green fields,
resistant to legal attack, less likely to be influenced by gold-bricking.
Observing and performing: non-technical
- Observing the job: direct access to a wide range of information, comprehensive results,
less subject to gold-bricking & time-consuming, subjective, observer alters job
performance, distraction by the worker, not every job can be analysed in this way.
- Job performance: low possibilities of gold-bricking & only for relative simple jobs that
require short training, not applicable if novice job analyst could inflict damage (e.g.
surgery).
Written records: non-technical
- The dairy method: ask incumbents to keep a log of their activities. Little preparation,
flexible format & different response styles, start when deadline is close, gold-bricking,
missing tasks, time-consuming to analyse, subjective.
Quantitative methods
1. Task lists: send each incumbent a questionnaire that contains biographical questions
and ask them to list ten tasks that they have done in their job during the past two weeks.
2. Checklists: ask incumbents to tick those tasks that are part of their job. Results are
analysed in terms of frequencies.
3. Inventories: change the items of a checklist into a likert-scale. Easy to analyse and can
obtain useful results with quite small samples.
4. Standard inventories:
a) Position analysis questionnaire (PAQ)
- Each of the 162 scales is benchmarked with explicit examples of what a rating
represents
- The database contains results for hundreds of jobs
- Broad spectrum job analysis inventory and is not particularly suited to the analysis of
managerial or professional jobs.
b) Work Profiling System: managerial, service, and manual workers
c) Occupational Analysis Inventory (OAI): 622 descriptions of work activities and
conditions, which are grouped into five main areas.
d) Job Components Inventory (JCI)
, e) Functional Job Analysis (FJA): method of analysing jobs using a controlled vocabulary, in
which activities are grouped according to whether an incumbent is dealing with people,
data, or things.
Person specifications
- Statements about competencies form the second important document in selection: the
person specification.
- Job analysis = a task-oriented job analysis, a person specification = a worker-oriented
job analysis.
1. Straightforward approach to person specifications
Rodger’s Seven Point Plan: a interview plan that covers most of the characteristics that
are relevant for work (list the competencies as essential and desirable)
- Physical make-up
- Attainments
- General intelligence: the ability to identify key aspects of a problem, the deduction of
the relationship between the different parts of the problem and the ability to deduce the
next step in sequence.
- Special aptitudes
- Interests
- Disposition
- Home circumstances
2. Sophisticated ways of producing person specifications
- When a job is very important or done by many employees.
- Four sophisticated approaches:
Repertory Grids: the most objective and scientific way of deriving person
specifications from a job analysis and the method usually proceeds in three stages
(triadic elicitation): task analysis, eliciting competencies, grading the tasks of the
competencies.
o First stage: list of most important tasks
o Second stage: three tasks are chosen and asked is to consider the
knowledge, skills, and abilities or other human characteristics to complete
each task successfully. SMEs determine which two tasks are most similar.
o Third stage: a grid is constructes (tasks along the top, skills down the side)
and incumbents grade each task on the extent to which it requires the skill
or characteristic.
o Advantages: information not attained by analyst, expressed in words used
by incumbents, gives a quantitative guide, the difficulty of tasks are
estimated, allows the skills needed for individual tasks to be specified.
Empirical Job Component Analysis: empirical date has been collected for job
analysis questionnaires such as the Position Analysis Questionnaire.
Expert Systems: it is expensive to attain data from a empirical job component
analysis, therefore show results to experts and ask experts to estimate the skills
needed for various tasks.
Intuitive Method
Competencies: the skills, knowledge, and abilities that are needed to perform a job
Fairness:
- Involve members of minority group
- Job analysis should be scrutinized to see whether the same goals can be achieved in
different ways.
- A person specification is unfair when it demands a characteristic which is not actually
necessary in order to perform a job but that differentiates two groups of people (e.g.
length of police officer).
