Saturday, August 15, 2009

Ricci presentation

On August 13th I gave a presentation at a PTC-NC luncheon about the Ricci decision. We had a great discussion about the implications (which remain to be seen) and dissected several passages from the decision.

One of the questions that came up had to do with the pass point. I didn't know the answer at the time, but looking back at the case it turns out that the City charter mandated a 70% pass point for these exams. Which is funny, because I made a joke about how 70% is the magic cutoff score given its ubiquity, particularly in the public sector.

In a perfect testing world would the pass point be based on an analysis of the minimum competency level required for the job? Yep. Did the 5-member majority in this case care? Nope.

You can view the (mostly visible) slides below.

Monday, August 10, 2009

September '09 IJSA

The September 2009 issue of IJSA (International Journal of Selection and Assessment) is chalk full of good stuff. Let's dive in.

1) An important update of the "guidelines and ethical considerations for assessment center operations"--a must for anyone interested in the appropriate use of assessment centers.

2) Speaking of assessment centers, here's a meta-analysis of how they correlate with cognitive ability and personality, as well as the proper way to weight the results.

3) Speaking of cognitive ability, curious about the correlation between ability and faking? Check out this large-sample study of faking on a biodata measure.

4) Worried about what your applicants think of your selection method? Frame it as select in (accept) rather than select out (reject).

5) Want to make sure your raters are rating accurately? You may want to re-think stocking your panel with agreeable people (sounds like a lot of fun for the exam analyst!).

6) Before you put the finishing touches on your new online job application system, make sure you pay attention to its features, user friendliness, and efficiency. I like to think of this as "Googley."

7) Looking for a measure of person-job fit that relates equity of contribution to reward? Check this out.

That's all for now!