While most of us tend to focus on testing in HR settings, we sometimes forget that the people who probably administer the most tests work in education, both at the K-12 and university level. While likely not a surprise, cheating can be a major concern in these contexts. For example, the University of Central Florida developed a specialized testing center to reduce the incidence of cheating. Amongst the measures used is an array of cameras monitoring student behavior and video monitors recessed into desks so that any efforts to take pictures of the test will become evident. Even gum chewing is prohibited for fear that it could be used to disguise a student’s efforts to speak into a recording device or phone.

While certainly interesting from a test security perspective, one also wonders about the message this sends to student about how they are viewed by the university. This point was made salient to me last week when I was on a college tour with my daughter at a couple of institutions which have honor codes. For example, students at Harvey Mudd College take their exams without supervision in the setting of their choice. As the walking-backwards-while talking student tour guide explained, professors simply distribute exams to students with instructions about how long they have to take the test and what reference materials are permitted. While the setting prevented my asking many probing questions, the faculty is apparently content with this approach  as it has been in place for some time. “Take-home” testing is also the norm at other institutions such as CalTech which uses a similar honor code model.

Reid Klion

The EEOC just recently announced that it was suing FAPS, a New Jersey company that processes newly imported cars for sale in the United States. While we won’t know about the truthfulness of the charges until the legal process is completed, the allegations against FAPS provide examples of the sorts of things that employers clearly need to avoid.

FAPS was found to have a statistically smaller percentage of African American employees in entry level positions than would be expected given the demography of the area (northern New Jersey). First, it is alleged that the organization relied almost exclusively on word-of-mouth recruiting which led to limited number of African Americans applying for jobs. This recruitment model would likely be seen as having adverse impact because it in and of itself is not deliberately discriminatory but did result in decreased numbers of African Americans applying for work. (This also illustrates how the concept of adverse impact applies to the entire selection process, not simply assessments). However, it is also further alleged that when African Americans did come to apply, they were told that no jobs were available ever though they were. This would be considered to be discriminatory because the intent is deliberate. Making matters worse, the EEOC also claims that the company asked questions about physical impairments on the application form which is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

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The National Security Administration (NSA) recently posted a video attempting to quell applicant anxiety about taking a polygraph test as part of its pre-employment selection process. Whether this has the desired impact or not remains to be seen. However, the use of lie detectors for job selection has a long and interesting history.

The "father of polygraph" was a Harvard psychologist named William Marston (who later went on to fame and fortune as creator of the “Wonderwoman” comic book character). It was thought that the truth of a candidate’s responses could be determined by measuring changes in blood pressure, breathing, and other physiological indices. Unfortunately, data supporting the validity of lie detectors has never been strong, and a federal law passed in 1988 largely prevented the use of polygraphs for pre-employment screening other than by the government in the case of national security, defense or law enforcement. (It is also interesting to note that the development of “integrity” or work attitude tests in the late 1980s was spurred by this law and the desire to find more effective ways to select good employees.)  While the polygraphs’ proponents acknowledge its limitation, they support its use continued as an interrogation aid in encouraging individuals to reveal information that they may not have otherwise.

Reid Klion

Our days at work are often filled with a series of tasks that complete for our attention including e-mail, phone calls, cell phones, and instant messaging.  Not surprisingly, recent data indicate that people working at computers change tpiawindows or check their e-mail almost 37 times an hour. Indeed, there are growing concerns about how this may impact brain functioning as well as increase work stress levels.

A related issue is whether this is a productive way to work. Fortunately, psychologists have started turning their attention to this question. Researchers at Stanford University compared individuals who were heavy vs. light multi-taskers. From the outset, my expectations were that people who multi-task often would become quite adept at working in this fashion. To the contrary, it was found that frequent multi-taskers were more easily distracted by irrelevant stimuli and actually did worse at multi-tasking than were their peers who did it less often.

If you are curious about your own abilities to attend and multi-task, here are samples of the tools used in the study to assess attention and ability to shift between tasks. 

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The program for the 2010 IPAC Conference has been posted. To be held July 18-21 in Newport Beach, CA, the meeting provides a prime opportunity to learn about the applied uses of personnel assessment tools in a friendly and collegial atmosphere. pan is proud to be a conference sponsor and several of us, including Nate Studebaker, Jocelyn Hays, and me, will be presenting.  Conference registration is still open if you are interested in attending.

Reid Klion

When it comes to human capital assessment, the vast majority of the tests that we use employ some variant of a multiple choice format where candidates are asked to select from response options that we provide. However, there is another type of test, called constructed response, which is primarily used in educational settings where the test taker is asked to provide a written response to a prompt. This approach has even come to be used in many of the standardized tests that have become quite popular in K-12 settings with the advent of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Apparently, All Souls College at Oxford University in the UK had been using a similar approach for admissions testing. Here, candidates were provided with a single word prompt (like “water,” “novelty,” or “death”) and then asked to write about it for 3 hours. It was decided recently, though, that the data obtained from the test were not as useful as previously thought, and this particular test format was dropped as a result. However, in case there are concerns that All Souls is lowering its standards,  candidates still need to write essay questions on topics which include:
•    Why is a leather jacket more acceptable than a fur coat?
•    Can computers think?
•    How European was Chaucer?

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Likely as an early sign of improvement in the unemployment situation, organizations are seeing an uptick in the number of employees who are quitting on their own accord. Indeed, February 2010 saw more workers resign from positions than were laid off, the first time this has happened in 15 months. One contributing factor may be that workers are feeling less and less satisfied in their current jobs due to workforce reductions. However, it is also likely that individuals who are separating voluntarily either have new positions in the offing or are at least optimistic about their ability to find a new job in short order. On an anecdotal basis, friends who work in the recruiting industry report a very high level of pent-up demand of individuals who are quite anxious to enter the job market once they sense an upturn in hiring. Citing several months of very little job movement, they expect a groundswell of activity once things improve even marginally.

Reid Klion

I have blogged and presented several times on unproctored internet testing (UIT). As most are familiar, it can be a powerful tool but it also needs to be done in a way that mitigates the risks  inherent in having an individual complete a test without supervision. Here is a situation where Transport Canada wanted to ensure that powerboat operators were aware of the basics of watercraft safety. Apparently, anyone wanting to obtain the required “proof of competency” card needed to complete an unproctored online test. To facilitate access, a number of companies were sanctioned to provide the test but many didn’t follow prescribed guidelines in doing so. Unfortunately, there were also major security issues and answers to the questions were widely available on the internet. Additionally, while verification can always be an issue with UIT, matters were made worse from an enforcement perspective because photographs do not appear on the competency cards, and there is not a central registry of individuals who passed. As a result, a number of individuals have criticized the program as having little value. While officials do acknowledge the need for improvement, they also believe that the program has increased overall safety knowledge amongst boaters.

Reid Klion

I recently came across an interesting article about negative employee reactions to performance reviews (and some of the comments are a treat in and of themselves). On the one hand, when employee reviews are handled poorly, they can definitely have a negative effect. On the other, it is difficult for anyone to improve at what they do, no matter what the situation, if they don’t get accurate feedback—both positive and negative—on how they are doing.

This issue of not having good performance data often becomes evident when we are asked to validate an assessment. The basic strategy that we use is usually one of trying to see how well various test scores can predict how employees do on the job. However, a frequent situation is that organizations may only use overall performance ratings which provide no information about an individual’s specific strengths and weakness. Furthermore, it is often the case that employee performance data provide little basis to differentiate between employees either. (The prototypic “bad” scenario is one in which 15% of employees are rated as “exceed expectations,” 85% are seen as “meets expectations, and 5% “need improvement”-- and this is the only employee performance data that exists.) If this is the case, unless we ask supervisors to complete a more comprehensive evaluation that looks at several aspects of job performance, it is virtually impossible to learn how well an assessment program is working. In a similar vein, if employers fail to provide specific and meaningful performance evaluations, it is difficult for employees to know what they need to do in order to get better at doing their jobs.

Reid Klion

Most everyone who works in HR is aware that under the Americans with Disabilities Act, employers need to make reasonable accommodations for individuals who happen to have a disability. For example, I once had a blind co-worker who had a “reader” provided by our employer to help him with work tasks that required sight. In the world of testing, providing reasonable accommodations often involves things such as permitting extended testing time for persons with a  learning disability or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. In these and most other cases, the accommodations can be relatively simple to identify and provide.

Unfortunately, things don’t always go as planned. Here is an interesting case about a workplace accommodation for an individual who developed a food allergy to paprika. Her reaction is sufficiently severe to induce anaphylactic shock and can even be triggered by the aroma of co-workers’ food. As a safeguard, the employee obtained a service dog at her own expense that was specially trained to detect paprika. Unfortunately, upon bringing the dog to work, one of her co-workers had an asthma attack due to dog allergies. There is now a dispute with the city about how it handled the situation involving the needs of both employees.

Reid Klion