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Assessment Center

The document discusses assessment centers, which use a variety of testing techniques to allow candidates to demonstrate skills and abilities for a job under standard conditions. Assessment centers involve multiple trained observers evaluating behaviors during simulations. Judgments are made about behaviors and then pooled in a meeting or integrated statistically. Assessment centers have been used since WWI by the Germans and WWII by the US Office of Strategic Services to select officers and spies. They involve exercises like interviews, discussions, and in-basket tasks to evaluate dimensions like decisiveness, judgment, and leadership. AT&T's landmark Management Progress Study found assessment centers could accurately predict which managers would reach middle management within 20 years.

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147 views21 pages

Assessment Center

The document discusses assessment centers, which use a variety of testing techniques to allow candidates to demonstrate skills and abilities for a job under standard conditions. Assessment centers involve multiple trained observers evaluating behaviors during simulations. Judgments are made about behaviors and then pooled in a meeting or integrated statistically. Assessment centers have been used since WWI by the Germans and WWII by the US Office of Strategic Services to select officers and spies. They involve exercises like interviews, discussions, and in-basket tasks to evaluate dimensions like decisiveness, judgment, and leadership. AT&T's landmark Management Progress Study found assessment centers could accurately predict which managers would reach middle management within 20 years.

Uploaded by

Murad
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Assessment Centers

What's an Assessment Center

• A Variety of testing techniques

• Measuring a verity of concepts

• Designed to allow candidates to demonstrate the skills


and abilities that are most essential for success in a given
job

• Under standard conditions


How Assessment Center Work?
• A standardized evaluation of behavior

• Based on multiple inputs

• Multiple trained observers and techniques

• Judgments about behaviors are made from specifically developed


assessment simulations.

• Judgments are pooled in a meeting among the assessors or by a


statistical integration process.

Source: Guidelines and Ethical Considerations for Assessment Center Operations. Task Force on
Assessment Center Guidelines; endorsed by the 17th International Congress on the Assessment
Center Method, May 1989.
Brief Assessment Center History
• Used by Germans in 1st World War to select officers
• Used by U.S. to select spies (OSS)
1. Prior to WWII the U.S. intelligence efforts were abysmal
2. “interpersonal friction, the impairment of efficiency and
moral, the injury to the reputation of the organizations that
results from actions of a man who is stupid, apathetic,
sullen, resentful, arrogant, or insulting in his dealings with
members of his own unit or allied units or with customers or
citizens of foreign countries”
3. General William Donovan introduced assessment center
methods
4. Combination of interviews, psychological and cognitive
ability tests, situational tests, and role play exercises. Vast
improvement to OSS
Essential Features of an
Assessment Center
 Job analysis of relevant behaviors

 Measurement techniques selected based on job analysis

 Multiple measurement techniques used, including simulation


exercises

 Assessors’ behavioral observations classified into meaningful and


relevant categories

 Multiple observations made for each dimension

 Multiple assessors used for each candidate

 Assessors trained to a performance standard


Essential Features of an
Assessment Center

 Systematic methods of recording behavior

 Assessors prepare behavior reports in preparation for integration

 Integration of behaviors through:


• Pooling of information from assessors and techniques; “consensus”
discussion
• Statistical integration process
Assessment Center Exercises

Sample Individual Exercises


• Interview Simulation
• Scheduling Exercise
• In-Basket

Sample Group Exercises


• Leaderless Group Discussion
• Business Game
Assessment Center
Design
&
Operation
Common Uses of Assessment Centers
 Selection and Promotion
• Supervisors & managers
• Self-directed team members

SELECTION DIAGNOSIS • Sales

 Diagnosis
• Training & development needs
• Placement
DEVELOPMENT
 Development
• Skill enhancement through
simulations
A Typical Assessment Center
Candidates participate in a series of exercises that simulate
on-the-job situations

Trained assessors carefully observe and document the behaviors


displayed by the participants. Each assessor observes each
participant at least once

Assessors individually write evaluation reports,


documenting their observations of each participant's
performance

Assessors integrate the data through a consensus


discussion process, led by the center administrator, who
documents the ratings and decisions

Each participant receives objective performance


information from the administrator or one of the assessors
Assessor Tasks
• Observe participant behavior in simulation exercises
• Record observed behavior on prepared forms

• Classify observed behaviors into appropriate dimensions

• Rate dimensions based upon behavioral evidence

• Share ratings and behavioral evidence in the consensus


meeting
Behavior

 What a person actually says or does

 Observable and verifiable by others

 Behavior is not:
• Judgmental conclusions
• Feelings, opinions, or inferences
• Vague generalizations
• Statements of future actions
Types of simulation exercises
 In-basket  Oral presentation
 Analysis  Leaderless group discussion
 Fact-finding • Assigned roles or not
• Competitive vs. cooperative
 Interaction
 Scheduling
• Subordinate
• Peer  Sales call
• Customer
 Production exercice
Dimensions By Exercise Grid
Assessment
Center ---
Sample Final
Rating Form
Participant:______________
(Name)
Assessor: ______________
(Name)
Date: ____________

Assessor Report Form


Interview Simulation

1 – Very little or none of the quality was shown.


2 – A less than satisfactory degree was shown.
3 – A satisfactory amount was shown.
4 – A greater than satisfactory amount was shown.
5 – A great deal of the quality was shown.

(1) Decisiveness: ______


(Readiness to make decisions, render judgments,
take action or commit oneself.)

(2) Judgment: ______


(Ability to develop alternative solutions to
problems, to evaluate courses of action and
reach logical decisions.)
Assessment Center Pros and Cons

+ Multiple exercises and raters

+ Behavioral Focus

+ Legal compliance

- Time and money involved

- Potential biases during group discussion

- Better predictor of progression within organizations than specific


performance scores (Policy Capturing Device?)
50 Years of the AT&T Management Progress
Study
AT&T’s Objectives

• Basic, longitudinal research

• How do managers’ lives and careers develop in a large organization?

• Use results to inform management selection and development programs.


Management Progress Study
In Private Industry, 1st used By AT&T to predict performance of
managers (Management Progress Study)

1. 422 men participated (1950s)Longitudinal – 20-year period


2. True predictive validation study
3. 85% of candidates predicted by the assessment center to teach
middle management actually did
4. 93% predicted not to – did not
5. Predictors
• Cognitive and Interpersonal Ability
• Need for advancement/Ambition
• Leadership Motivation
• Low Need for Security
• High Self esteem
• Decision Making
• Personal Impact
• Realism of Expectations
• Oral Communications Skills
• Resistance to Stress

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