Do Assessment/Development Centres Use Optimum Evaluation Procedures? A Survey of Practice in UK Organizations 1

A survey of performance management (PM) practices in 101 U.S. organizations explored whether their PM systems, as perceived by human resources (HR) executives, reflect the best practices advocated by researchers to provide a benchmark of current PM practices. Results suggest that many of the PM practices recommended in the research literature are employed across the organizations surveyed, but several gaps between research and practice remain. Results also indicated that the majority of PM systems are viewed by HR executives as effective and fair. Implications for the science and practice of PM are discussed.

Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 81%

An exploratory study of current performance management practices: Human resource executives’ perspectives

Gorman¹,

Meriac

Roch

et al. 2017

“…according to multiple criteria. Recent interrogations of AC users exemplify that assessment centres (AC tasks) are still frequently utilized for selection, promotion, and development purposes in the USA and also in most of the European countries (see Boyle, Fullerton and Wood 1995;Ryan, Baron and Page 1999;Schuler, Frier and Kufmann 1993;Spychalski, Quinones, Gaugler and Pohley 1997). To give an example, the different personnel administrators asked by Schuler et al criticized the extensive and expensive effort to conduct an AC.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Conceptual Basis of Assessment Centre Ratings

Hoeft

Schuler

2001

Although assessment centres exhibit good content-and satisfactory criterion-related validity results, poor outcome is derived from construct-oriented validity studies. Twenty years of research on this topic have not changed the basic results. Important for the relationship between different assessments is not whether they grasp the same managerial dimension but whether they were obtained through the same exercise. The discussion presented in this article emphasizes among other reasons the conceptual specialties of assessment centre rating dimensions. All too hastily they are given the same status as traditional personality traits. Two studies are extensively described to clarify this argument. The first study utilizes a structural equation approach to demonstrate that commonly utilized AC dimensions differ in the realized degree of trait-like consistency. The second study investigates the linkage between AC outcomes and traditional trait constructs utilizing a meta-analytical approach. The highest correlations result for intelligence scores, social competence, achievement motivation, selfconfidence, and dominance measures. In the conclusion, the conceptual differences between trait (= sign-) and simulation (= sample-) oriented assessment approaches are highlighted.

“…One response to that lack of construct validity has been to call for more research into the cognitive processes of individuals acting as assessors (e.g., Boyle, Fullerton and Wood 1995;Bycio, Alvares and Hahn 1987).`The way assessors select, organize, store, and recall information about assessees may be influenced to a large extent by the particular methods and procedures used in conducting the assessment center' (Silverman, Dalessio, Woods and Johnson 1986, p. 566). Given the considerable evidence that people are limited in their informationprocessing capacity (e.g., Baddeley and Weiskrantz 1993), it is reasonable to ask how well assessors cope with the complex task of observing and recording the behaviour of participants in an exercise, classifying those behaviours by prescribed dimensions, and evaluating the effectiveness of performance accurately in terms of each dimension.…”

mentioning

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.