To keep consulting psychologists up-to-date on research relevant to practice, a review was conducted of the recent literature written about individual assessment practices. This review focused on articles and books that were published in the past 10 years. Trends in individual assessment practices are discussed, and theoretical support for the use of individual assessment in personnel selection is provided despite the limited empirical support. A research agenda for individual assessment practices is also proposed. She has also served as a faculty member of Roosevelt University, where she taught undergraduate and graduate courses to include introduction to I/O psychology, personnel psychology, advanced organizational psychology, and leadership. I would like to thank Andrew Garman and Stephen Laser for their feedback on this article.
Individual psychological assessment (IPA) is an active area of practice for many industrial-organizational (I-O) psychologists.Unfortunately, the research base on these practices lags considerably behind other approaches used in employee selection. The article by Silzer and Jeanneret (2011) will hopefully promote increased discussion and, more importantly, increased research on individual assessment practices. In this commentary, we highlight several areas of work that we view as essential to building a sound body of empirical research to serve as the scientific foundation for individual assessment practices.
Definition of Individual AssessmentBefore we can make progress in understanding the utility of IPA, we first need to figure out what we mean by the term. Of central importance is to determine whether IPA reflects a unique approach to employee selection. Alternatively, IPA might be viewed simply as a collection of
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