A Process for Assessment Exercise Design: a Model of Best Practice

This study aims to shed light on possible problems of assessment center users and designers when developing and implementing assessment centers. Semi‐structured interviews with a representative sample of assessment center users in Flanders revealed that, besides a large variability in assessment center practice, practitioners experience problems with dimension selection and definition, exercise design, line/staff managers as assessors, distinguishing between observation and evaluation, and with the content of assessor training programs. Solutions for these problems are suggested.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Different Look at Assessment Centers: Views of Assessment Center Users

Lievens

Goemaere

1999

“…Assessment center exercises are developed to carefully represent the most important elements of the target job (see e.g., Ahmed et al 1997). On the one hand, this contributes to the job relatedness and predictive power of assessment centers.…”

Section: Situational Exercisesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors which Improve the Construct Validity of Assessment Centers: A Review

Lievens

1998

106

This article reviews 21 studies which manipulated specific variables to determine their impact on the construct validity of assessment centers. This review shows that the studies regarding the impact of different observation, evaluation, and integration procedures yielded mixed results. Conversely, dimension factors (number, conceptual distinctiveness, and transparency), assessor factors (type of assessor and type of assessor training), and exercise factors (exercise form and use of role-players) were found to moderate construct validity. On the basis of the review, practical recommendations are derived to maximize the probability that practitioners design and administer an assessment center with construct validity. Finally, new perspectives for future research are identified.

“…Consistent with current good practice (Ahmed, Payne and Whiddett 1997;Gaugler and Thornton 1989), the number of judgement dimensions was restricted to four. Those were chosen from generic management competency models to be appropriate for the exercises under observation.…”

Section: Dimensionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment Centre Observation Procedures: An Experimental Comparison of Traditional, Checklist and Coding Methods

Hennessy¹,

Mabey²,

Warr³

1998

Concern about the construct validity of assessment centre judgements has led to calls for research into observers' cognitive processes. In an experiment comparing the Traditional observation procedure against use of a Behavioural Checklist and of Behavioural Coding, six outcome variables were examined. The methods were found to yield similar outcomes in terms of accuracy of judgement, accuracy of written evidence, correlation between dimension ratings, and attitude toward the method employed. However, significant between-method differences were observed in variability between observers and in their willingness to recommend a procedure. It is argued that Behavioural Coding has special merit in assessment centres; the method reduces the cognitive demands placed on assessors, and valuably structures their information-processing. Traditional objections to simultaneous observation and classification are shown to be inappropriate.