Three different types of psychological assessments can be used in the workplace. Biographical data instruments are used to collect information like a candidate’s ability to work with a team, lead employees, interpersonal skills, creativity, and extraversion. The instruments explore a candidate’s education, work experience, and interests to determine if they will be successful in their potential role. Cognitive ability tests determine how quickly a candidate can learn, use logic and reasoning, and other factors. They give employers an idea of how well a candidate can solve problems and their job-related skills. Personality tests can be used to determine how well a candidate can handle stress, their level of optimism, agreeableness, emotional stability, and their ability to take initiative and be proactive.
Factors to consider when selecting a psychological assessment include the predictability, norms, validity, reliability, and objectivity of the assessment. Examples include the Myers Briggs, Big Five, Occupational Interest Inventory, and Situation Judgement tests. Using the right assessment can help organizations avoid hiring the wrong candidate or promoting the wrong employee. This could have negative impacts on workplace morale, performance, efficiency, and productivity.
Assessments must be valid and reliable, and it is just as important that the format and results be interpreted correctly. All assessors should be trained in the assessments that they use and should know how to interpret the results. Assessors can be supervised by someone well-versed in the assessment while they are learning but ultimately should not interpret results until trained. Assessors should also get additional interpretations from other trained individuals to avoid semantics-related issues and biases.
The more aligned assessment interpretations are, the more they appear valid and reliable and can be used to finalize the results. Factors that influence the reliability and validity of assessments are objectivity, which indicates that assessments should be free of illogical judgment. The assessment should measure the average outcome of a sample and should be predictable but not too lengthy or hard to understand and interpret. Results should be consistent, and the assessment needs to measure what it intends to measure.
Rojon et al. (2015) conducted a meta-analysis of general mental ability (GMA) tests, personality tests, and a combination of both. The Five Factor Model (FFM) was used to code predictor variables to determine a relationship between personality and performance and eight performance taxonomy factors. The results showed that GMA tests were good predictors of overall job performance (OJP), with an increase in predictive validity in each specific criterion. The FFM showed low or nonexistent predictive validities for OJP. Ability tests and personality tests are predictive of performance and should be paired with other performance dimensions to increase the predictive validity. It is important that the relationship and relevance between the predictor and the criterion variable match so that the precision of prediction is also greater.
It is important to select the appropriate applicant selection assessment and employee evaluation assessment. There is no one size fits all, so assessments should be selected for the scenario. Assessments for selecting applicants include conducting a general interview, ability test, psychological assessment, situational-based interview, integrity test, business-related test, and personality test. These could all be conducted as a pre-screening, after pre-screening, or without any pre-screening, and virtually or in person. That means the applicant pool expands to anywhere in the United States or globally since it makes it easier for the applicant to apply for a role. However, recruiters and employers run the risk of applicants being distracted, cheating, not being technologically savvy, or not having access to a computer or internet connection.
Proposed Strategies
Workplace assessments can help collect workplace data, but some improvements could be made. Sometimes mentors or supervisors have difficulty honestly grading employees on their performance. Scoring employees high when they are not performing adequately could be detrimental to them, especially when they attempt to advance in their careers. A proposed strategy to avoid the assessor being dishonest with their assessment would be to have another person review their feedback. Human Resources personnel and managers or the assessor are usually available to take a second look to ensure the assessor has fairly assessed the employee. The individual giving the second opinion should inquire about why the original assessor evaluated the employee the way they did to ensure the evaluation was fair and accurate.
If adjustments need to be made to the evaluation, the adjustments must be made strategically. Robbins et al. (2018) made changes to their assessment weighting to place more importance on the academic part of their students’ work. The changes had a short-term impact but proved to be unreliable. The academic team and the students were involved in the changes, but the workplace mentors were not. Everyone who conducts an assessment and is assessed should play a role in any changes to the assessments. It is imperative to have buy-in from everyone, or the organization runs the risk of the assessments being misused.
The debate on scores is also something to be noted. Robbins et al. (2018) adjusted their assessment rubric to exclude grades and include text boxes so that students could give qualitative feedback. The qualitative feedback helped spark conversations for assessors to understand further what could be better. The feedback helped assessors understand what students needed and allowed assessors to create a more unified vocabulary around assessment. The feedback also helped mentors explain their judgments on students better than before, which also strengthened their mentoring approaches. Research findings showed a decrease in the quality of learning and a decrease in motivation in students when assessments included a scoring system. A scoring system was found to motivate students to put their energy towards performance goals instead of learning, understanding, and mastering the information. It was also discovered that students focused more on their scores than the feedback explaining their scores.
The assessor should explain their evaluation approach, but it helps when there are logs of the employee’s or student’s progress. An E-portfolio could help track an employee’s or student’s development of specific competencies like knowledge, skills, and collaboration. It also helps by showing the employee or student how they are doing and allows them to track their progress so that there are no surprises in their evaluation if they are underperforming. The E-portfolio can be used with other tools that reflect employees’ and students’ ideas, reflections, and learning. The E-portfolios are most successful when they are tailored to the characteristics of the workplace. They also provide limited recommendations for improvement, which would require supervisors to be more involved and collaborate with the employees or students to create a plan for their development.
The importance of collaboration is sometimes overlooked. There is a need for a more robust engagement of assessors and individuals being assessed. If employee engagement is low, then the assessment feedback is likely to be seen as meaningless. Supervisors must remain involved and encourage employees to apply feedback to improve themselves. Supervisors can facilitate employees to review, reflect, and talk about their feedback with their supervisors. An open dialogue will help employees understand, accept, and use the feedback. An effective work-based assessment provides a dialogue for two people to discuss results and goals and should not be used as a one-way transmission of feedback.
Industrial-Organizational Psychologist’s Role
Industrial and organizational (I/0) psychologists’ role is to study people, groups of people, and workplace dynamics. They help find solutions to workplace issues that improve an organization’s engagement, satisfaction, and performance and its employees. I/O psychologists are versed in studying human behavior in the work environment. They understand that an organization’s profitability depends on their product or service and happy and committed employees. When there are issues in the workplace, I/O psychologists can determine what training and development are needed; help increases the quality of the work-life, evaluate the effectiveness of training and development programs, professionally develop employees and leaders, create criteria to assess employee performance, and determine customer wants and market strategies.
Assessments are essential when determining workplace issues, employee performance, and clients’ problems and strengths. There are three components to evidence-based assessments (EBA). Research and theories supported by research should be available to help I/O psychologists choose the constructs to be tested and the testing process. Assessments should be designed to fit the scenario or need of the organization. The second component is psychometrically strong measures should be utilized to analyze targeted concepts in the assessment. The evidence of reliability, validity, and the use/value of the assessment should also be present and determined by the I/O psychologist. Each assessment should fit the relevant characteristics of the people being assessed, like their culture, age, and gender. The third component includes using data to create and test hypotheses, which is something that I/O psychologists must be trained to do.
There are other components that I/O psychologists should consider. Assessments should be tailored and adequate for the specific company and industry. The pattern of the results should be easy to understand the risk nature and the prevention strategies. The assessment should be easy to reproduce and auditable. It should be able to integrate with previous research of the methods and results quickly.