Individual Psychological Assessment: A Practice and Science in Search of Common Ground

Abstract

During the past 30 years, individual psychological assessment (IPA) has gained in use and in value to organizations in the management of human resources. However, even though IPA is considered a core competency for industrial–organizational (I–O) psychology, its practice is not without critics. This article is written not only to address several criticisms of IPA but also to discuss a variety of issues that must be taken into consideration if IPA is to advance as a major component of the I–O scientist–practitioner model. We rely upon a working definition of IPA in general but, when possible, focus on executive assessment in particular, given its high level of complexity and growing popularity. We discuss the effectiveness of assessment practice, including the ongoing statistical versus clinical prediction argument and the difficulties with establishing validity. Although we are confident that IPA has many strong research and practice underpinnings, we also propose some important research questions, training guidelines, and opportunities for assessing psychologists to improve their practices.

A meta-analysis of the relationship between individual assessments and job performance.

“…While recent literature has given increased attention to individual assessment (McPhail & Jeanneret, 2011;Silzer & Jeanneret, 2011), additional research is needed to identify the practices that are most effective.…”

The Validity of Individual Psychological Assessments for Entry-Level Police and Firefighter Positions

“…Highhouse, 2008;Silzer & Jeanneret, 2011). Decades of research have demonstrated that a simple weighted average of test scores is generally as accurate, and sometimes more accurate, than clinical predictions (AEgisdóttir et al, 2006;Grove, Zald, Lebow, Snitz, & Nelson, 2000;Kuncel, Klieger, Connelly, & Ones, 2013).…”

“…In particular, IPA is widely used in executive selection (Silzer & Jeanneret, 2011), and IPA may provide higher validities for managerial occupations (Morris et al, 2015). Therefore, more favorable validity evidence might be expected for positions with greater managerial responsibility.…”

“…IPAs are often designed to evaluate a combination of knowledge, skills, abilities, and other attributes of the potential employee. Further, through personal interaction, the assessor may be able to observe subtle behavioral cues and interpret specific responses in the context of broader behavioral patterns (Silzer & Jeanneret, 2011), thereby providing information not available through standardized tests.…”

“…Assessors are not necessarily interchangeable; some are likely to prove better than others. Silzer and Jeanneret (2011) outline a number of essential competencies for assessors that might impact the usefulness of their ratings. Thus, it is not sufficient to validate the assessment tools; validity evidence is also needed for the judgment of each assessor (Morris, Kwaske, & Daisley, 2011).…”