Monday, November 4, 2019

Types of psychometric tests



The British Psychological Society (2002), mentions that there are two main types of psychological tests that those which measure ability, aptitude and attainment and those designed to assess personal qualities which are believes, motivation and values. Number of various psychometric testing methods were used over the time by most of organizations on recruitment and selection process. International and local Organizations use common recruitment and selection methods to stay competitive in the securing optimal human resources (Bartram, 2004). Further, responsible assessment can benefit the recruitment and selection of the candidates from previously disadvantaged backgrounds as a part of a drive towards the equity in the workplace (van der merwe,2002).



(Source- HWWW Channel, 2019)

References
Bartram, D. (2004). Assessment in Organizations. Applied Psychology: An International Review

The British Psychological Society, A to Z of Psychology (2002) Available at : https://www.bps.org.uk/about-us/history-psychology-centre (Accessed : 08th December 2018)

Types of Psychometric tests (2019) Available at https://youtu.be/nup-deSe0fQ  (Accessed:05th November 2019)

Van der Merwe, R.P. (2002). Psychometric testing and human resource management. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology

10 comments:

  1. When examining the cross-cultural application of tests, attention should be given to factors such as language, race, socio-economic status, gender, educational background (Bedell, et al.1999 ). Specifically the impact of language and cultural differences.

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    1. The often cited interference to the administration of psychological tests as reported by interview participants is language. Language can be challenging on three levels: (i) the language in which the test is created, (ii) the difficulty level of the test language, especially if the test is directed in the testee’s second or third language, (van de Vijver and Rothmann, 2004) and (iii) the language capability of the testee. Language is thoroughly tied to culture. Cultural context particularly becomes a problem when doing personality assessment, as theories have different meanings and are experienced differently across cultures. Normally, personality tests require a high level of language proficiency (van de Vijver and Rothmann, 2004).

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  2. Hi Ganga, HR professional can implement to maximize the value of psychological tests for selection rather than focus on the technical aspects of selection, for example test validity (Muchinsky 2004). When it comes to the types of testing, Ability and personality tests are the most popular forms of psychological testing for selection purposes (Keenan 1995; Ryan and Sackett 1987, 1992; Taylor et al. 2002;Salgado and De Fruyt 2005; Carless 2007)

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    1. Of course,in order to be effective, HR practitioners need to be informed of best practice in a varied selection of activities (Pfeffer 1994; Griffeth and Hom 2001) One of the modern researches on the use of psychometric testing was given by Costa & McCrae (2013), which was carried out to quantity the reliability and validity of the psychometric testing in employee selection. The research confirmed the idea that the psychometric tests are no hesitation reliable and valuable for the organizations in personnel selection, but psychometric tests should not be assumed as a sole measure in the decision making of hiring. Their study suggested that the results of the psychometric test should not be limited in recruitment only. Rather, they should be used in future career paths, training need analysis, and work allocation of employees as well. In this way, organizations can get long-standing and cost-effective benefits if psychometric results are used multi-purposefully.

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  3. Schmidt and Hunter (1998) defined that predictive validity in psychometric test in applicant is in high level on employee requirements.

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    1. Validated intelligence and personality tests will produce useful data,
      but there is much to be said for joining them in a selection procedure with structured interviews.
      Tests are often used as part of a selection procedure for jobs where a large number of recruits are required, and where it is not possible to rely entirely on examination results or information about previous experience as the basis for predicting future performance (Armstrong,2014

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  4. According to Owen and Taljaard (1996), it appears that psychometric tests can contribute to the efficiency of selection and placement in industry, if used carefully and responsibly. Friedenberg (1995) referred to research which compared different selection procedures (application forms, letters of reference, interviews, testing) and confirmed that although each technique has its own merits, standardized tests are the most psychometrically sound.

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    1. Yes.Psychometric tests endeavor to measure a candidate’s qualities as objectively or quantitatively as possible (Maphanga 2011). Psychometric tests contain a range of instruments which are designed to evaluate and measure the attributes, abilities, personality traits and various skills of the candidate under consideration for a vacancy (Jenkins 2001).

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  5. Based on the International Test Commission’s Guidelines on Test Use, The British Psychological Society (2017) lists four primary indicators of a suitable psychometric test. First and foremost, a psychometric test must be reliable by means of an accurate scoring mechanism. Reliability can generally be increased by lengthening tests, and decreased by shortening them. In this regard, the multitude of psychometric assessments designed to characterize individuals using a limited number of personality types may be viewed as potentially restrictive and unreliable, depending on how well the test has been developed.

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    1. In addition to the impact of previewing test scores on interview structure, much has been written about how interviewers’ information processing plans and competences affect the interview outcomes (i.e., interviewer cognitive factors). Posthuma, Morgeson and Campion (2002) identified two streams of interview investigation within a reasoning framework. These are: (a) pre-interview impressions, which refer to applicant evaluations that are formed from information prior to the interview; and (b) confirmatory biases, in which interviewers pursue out information that supports or confirms their theories

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