Chapter 16

Assessment, Careers, and Business

McGraw-Hill/Irwin © 2013 McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights Reserved.

 Career Choice and Transition
• There are a variety of tests to help in
various phases of career choice.
– e.g., tests to survey interests, aptitudes,
skills; tests to measure attitudes
toward work and confidence in
one’s skills

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 Career Choice and Transition
• Measures of interest
– One variable considered closely related to
occupational success is personal interest.
• An individual’s interests may be sufficiently solidified
by age 15 that they can be useful in career planning.
– Interest measure: an instrument designed to
evaluate testtakers’ likes, dislikes, leisure
activities, curiosities, and involves in various
pursuits for comparison with groups of various
occupations and professions

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 Career Choice and Transition
• Measures of interest
– Strong Interest Inventory
• G. Stanley Hall (1907)
• Designed to assess children’s interest in various
recreational pursuits
– Strong Vocational Interest Blank (SVIB)
• Edward K. Strong, Jr. (1928)
– Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (SCII)
• David P. Campbell (1974)
• A revised version of the SVIB, most recently revised in
2004 and renamed the Strong Interest Inventory,
Revised Edition
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 Career Choice and Transition
• Measures of interest
– Using Strong’s measure, an examinee’s pattern of
interests could be compared to those patterns of
people actually employed in various occupations
and professions.
– Self-Directed Search: explores interests within
the context of Holland’s (1997) theory of
vocational personality types and work
environments
• According to Holland’s theory, vocational choice is an
expression of one of six personality types: Realistic,
Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, or
Conventional (“Big 6” or RIASEC) 16-5
 Career Choice and Transition
• Measures of ability and aptitude
– Ability and aptitude tests vary widely in topics
covered, specificity of coverage, and other
variables
– Wonderlic Personnel Test measures mental
ability in a general sense, assessing spatial skill,
abstract thought, and mathematical skill
– Bennet Mechanical Comprehension Test: a
measure of a testtaker’s ability to understand the
relationship between physical forces and various
tools and other common objects 16-6
 Career Choice and Transition
• Measures of ability and aptitude
– General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB): a tool
used often by various employment offices to
identify aptitudes for occupations
• Consists of 12 timed tests that take approximately three
hours total to complete
• Special Aptitude Test Battery (SATB): the version of
the GATB that selectively measures aptitudes for a
specific line of work

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 Career Choice and Transition
• Measures of personality
– The issue of personality measures in employment
settings is fraught with controversy
– Personality assessment in employment-related
research may begin with Costa and McCrae’s
(1992) Big Five, Tellegen’s (1985) Big Three, or
Holland’s Big Six, or any number of alternative
personality measures.

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 Career Choice and Transition
• Measures of personality
– Integrity test: a test specifically designed to
predict employee theft, honest, adherence to
establish procedures, and/or potential violence
• May be used to screen new employees or evaluate
current ones
• Sackett et al. (1989) dichotomized integrity tests into
overt integrity tests and personality-based measures
(which consist of subtler forms of questioning than the
overt forms)
• Whether integrity tests measure what they intend to
measure is debatable.
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 Career Choice and Transition
• Measures of personality
– Measuring personality types
• Isabel Briggs Myer and Katharine Cook Briggs
referenced the writings of Carl Jung to develop the
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
– MBTI: a test used to classify assesses by psychological type
and to shed light on the “basic differences in the
ways human beings take information and make
decisions”

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 Career Choice and Transition
• Measures of personality
– The relationship between personality and work
performance
• It is difficult to establish a relationship empirically
between personality and work performance
– How is “work performance” operationally defined?
There is no single metric that can be standardized
across all occupations.
– Which aspect of personality should be measured?
Different aspects have greater relevance for
different occupations.
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 Career Choice and Transition
• Measures of personality
– The relationship between personality and work
performance
• Researchers have examined work performance in
relation to Big 5 traits:
– Conscientiousness and extraversion scores have
been correlated with good work performance
– Neuroticism scores have been correlated with
poor work performance

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 Career Choice and Transition
• Other measures
– Checklist of Adaptive Living Skills (CALS):
surveys the life skills needed to make a successful
transition from school to work
– Cross-Cultural Adaptability Inventory (CCAI):
a self-administered and self-scored instrument
designed to provide information on the testtaker’s
ability to adapt to other cultures, yielding
information about one’s readiness to adapt to new
situations, tolerate ambiguity, maintain one’s
personal identity in new surroundings, and interact
with people from other cultures
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 Career Choice and Transition
• Other measures
– An important assessment instrument relevant to
career decisions is one designed by the assessee
• Such a questionnaire would be administered to a person
established in the career the assessee is contemplating
• This way, the assessee can identify their beliefs and
assumptions about the work and have those ideas
confirmed or denied by someone working in the field
• Questions could include:
– “What background is needed to enter this field?”
– “What do you do on a typical day?”
– “If you could, what would you change about your job?”
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 Screening, Selection, Classification,
and Placement
• Screening: a relatively superficial process of
evaluation based on certain minimal standards,
criteria, or requirements
• Selection: a process whereby each person
evaluated for a position will be either accepted
or rejected for that position
• Classification: a categorization or “pigeon-
holing” with respect to two or more criteria
• Placement: a disposition, transfer, or
assignment to a group or category made on the
basis of one criterion 16-15
 Screening, Selection, Classification,
and Placement
• A résumé can include information related to
one’s work objectives, qualifications,
education, and experience
• A letter of application informs the potential
employer of motivation, businesslike writing
skills, and his or her unique personality

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 Screening, Selection, Classification,
and Placement
• Application forms can be thought of as
biographical sketches that provide information
pertinent to the acceptability of job candidates
– Includes demographic information, educational
background, military service, previous work
experience, and contact information
• Letters of recommendation provide detailed
information about the applicant’s past
performance and the quality of the applicant’s
relationships with peers, as well as other
important details
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 Screening, Selection, Classification,
and Placement
• Interviews provide the opportunity for a face-
to-face exchange of information.
• Portfolio assessment evaluates an individual’s
work sample, providing a means for screening,
selection, classification, or placement
decisions
• Performance tests provide the opportunity for
demonstration or assessment of certain skills
under a specified set of circumstances
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 Screening, Selection, Classification,
and Placement
• Assessment center: a widely-used tool in
selection, classification, and placement; an
organizationally-standardized procedure for
evaluation involving multiple assessment
techniques such as paper-and-pencil tests and
situational performance tests

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 Screening, Selection, Classification,
and Placement
• Physical tests entail evaluation of one’s
somatic health and intactness, and observable
sensory and motor abilities
• Drug testing is used to determine the
presence, if any, of alcohol or other
psychotropic substances by means of
laboratory analysis of blood, urine, hair, or
other biological specimens

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 Cognitive Ability, Productivity, and
Motivation Measures
• Measures of cognitive ability
– Selection decisions regarding personnel,
professional licensure, or acceptance for academic
training, are often based in part on performance
tests that tap acquired knowledge and other various
cognitive abilities
– These screening tools are not without their
controversy, however
• Empirical evidence supports the existence of consistent
group differences on cognitive ability tests (e.g., Asians
tend to outperform Whites on tests of quantitative
measures, while Whites score higher than Asians on
verbal ability) 16-21
 Cognitive Ability, Productivity, and
Motivation Measures
• Measures of productivity
– Measures of productivity help to define the current
position of a business and what is required for it to
get where it wants to be
– Forced distribution technique: a procedure
involving distribution of a predetermined number
of assesses into various categories describing
performance
– Critical incidents techniques: involves the
supervisor recording positive and negative
employee behaviors 16-22
 Cognitive Ability, Productivity, and
Motivation Measures
• Measures of motivation
– Champagne (1969) developed a motivational
questionnaire to tap the values of assessees in
regards to motivation
• The questionnaire addressed 12 factors used by
companies to entice employment applications: fair pay,
steady job, paid vacations and holidays, job benefits,
interesting work, good working conditions, etc.
• Among a population of rural, unskilled participants,
“steady job” was more important

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 Cognitive Ability, Productivity, and
Motivation Measures
• Measures of motivation
– On a theoretical basis, several theories seek to
delineate the specific needs, attitudes, social
influences, and other factors that account for
motivational differences
– Vroom (1964) proposed an expectancy theory of
motivation, which holds that employees expend
energy in ways designed to achieve their desired
outcome

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 Cognitive Ability, Productivity, and
Motivation Measures
• Measures of motivation
– Maslow (1943) developed a theoretical hierarchy
of human needs and proposed that, after one
category of needs is met, people seek to satisfy the
next category
– Alderfer (1972) proposed an alternative need
theory of motivation that was not hierarchical and
instead, the organism will strive to satisfy a need
to an even greater extent

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 Cognitive Ability, Productivity, and
Motivation Measures
• Measures of motivation
– McClelland (1961) sought to define the
characteristics of achievement motivation and used
stories written under special instructions about the
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) and TAT-like
pictures
• He described an individual high in the need for
achievement as one who prefers a task that is neither too
simple nor extremely difficult, but a moderate challenge
without too much risk

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 Cognitive Ability, Productivity, and
Motivation Measures
• Measures of burnout
– Burnout: a psychological syndrome of emotional
exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal
accomplishment that can occur among individuals
who work with other people to some capacity
• Emotional exhaustion: an inability to give of oneself
emotionally to others
• Depersonalization: the distancing of oneself from other
people and the development of cynical attitudes toward
them

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 Cognitive Ability, Productivity, and
Motivation Measures
• Measures of burnout
– Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI)
• Contains 22 items divided into three subscales:
Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization, and Personal
Accomplishment
• Using this instrument, researchers have found that some
occupations are characterized by higher levels of
burnout than others (e.g., nursing)

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 Job Satisfaction, Organizational
Commitment, and Organizational Culture
• Job satisfaction: a pleasurable or positive emotional state
resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job
experiences
– Compared with dissatisfied workers, satisfied workers
are believed to be more productive, more consistent in
work output, less likely to complain, and less likely to
miss work
– Measures of job satisfaction includes video-recording,
cognitive evaluations of the work and work schedule,
evaluations of perceived sources of stress, and
evaluations of various aspects of well-being
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 Job Satisfaction, Organizational
Commitment, and Organizational Culture

• Organizational commitment: a person’s

feelings of loyalty to, identification with, and
involvement in an organization
– Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (QCQ)
is a widely used measure of this construct

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 Job Satisfaction, Organizational
Commitment, and Organizational Culture
• Organizational culture: the totality of socially-
transmitted behavior patterns characteristic of a
particular organization or company, including:
– The structure of the organization and roles within it
– The leadership style
– The prevailing values, norms, sanctions, and support
mechanisms
– The past traditions and folklore, methods of
enculturation, and characteristic ways of interaction
with people and institutions outside of the culture
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 Other Tools of Assessment

• Consumer psychology: a branch of social

psychology dealing primarily with the development,
advertising, and marketing of products and services
– Questions of consumer psychology include:
• Does a market exist for this new product?
• Exactly who constitutes the market for this product?
• What is the best way to package this product?

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 Other Tools of Assessment
• Measurement of attitudes
– Attitudes formed about products, services, or
brand names are a focus of interest in consumer
psychology research
– Attitude is typically measured via self-report tests
• A limitation to this method is that people differ in their
ability to be introspective, as well as their willingness to
be candid about their attitudes

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 Other Tools of Assessment
• Measurement of attitudes
– Measuring implicit attitudes
• Implicit attitude: a nonconscious, automatic
association in memory that produces a disposition to
react in some characteristic manner to a particular
stimulus
• Implicit Attitudes Test (IAT): a computerized sorting
task by which implicit attitudes are gauged with
reference to the testtaker’s reaction times
– The IAT is based on the premise that subjects will
find it easier when they perceive the stimuli
presented to them as being strongly associated
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 Other Tools of Assessment

• Survey: a fixed list of questions administered to a

selected sample of persons for the purpose of
learning about consumer’s attitudes, beliefs,
opinions, and/or behavior with regard to the
targeted products, services, or advertising
– Poll: a specialized type of survey that usually
contains questions that can be answered with a
simple yes-no or for-against response

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 Other Tools of Assessment
• Surveys and polls can be conducted in a
number of formats, including face-to-face,
online, by telephone, or by mail
– Each method has its advantages and its
disadvantages, which need to be carefully
considered when one is contemplating use of this
method of assessment
– It is possible to combine the various survey
methods to obtain the advantages of each

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 Other Tools of Assessment
• Many commercial research firms maintain a
list of a large number of people who have
agreed to respond to questionnaires that are
sent to them (a consumer panel)
– A diary panel involves respondents that must keep
detailed records of their behavior, including
records of products they purchased or coupons
they used

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 Other Tools of Assessment
– Semantic differential technique: an approach to
survey item construction which entails graphically
placing a pair of bipolar adjectives (i.e., good-bad,
strong-weak) on a seven-point scale:
GOOD ___/___/___/___/___/___/___ BAD
• Respondents are instructed to place a mark on this
continuum that corresponds to their judgment or rating

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 Other Tools of Assessment
– Motivation research methods: research that
involves analyzing motives for consumer behavior
and attitudes, utilizing individual interviews and
focus groups
• These research methods are used to examine, in depth, the
reactions of consumers who are representative of the group
of people who use a particular product or service
– Behavioral observation allows for the monitoring of
what prompts a consumer to make a purchase
– Other methods to study consumer motivation
includes projective tests, tachistoscopes,
electroencephalographs, and literature reviews.
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