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Individual Differences and Assessment - Coggle Diagram
Individual Differences and Assessment
Individual Differences: Cognitive ability, physical ability, personality, interests, knowledge, and emotion
Human attributes (remain even after training)
Cognitive Ability: The "g" (general mental ability) factor/IQ
Predictive power increases with job complexity
Specific facets
Measuring "g" alone may not be sufficient or defensible
Carroll's three layers to intelligence:
"g"
Fluid intelligence, crystallised intelligence, memory, visual perception, auditory perception, information retrieval, cognitive speed
Abilities tied to the above 7 broad abilities
Physical abilities: Muscular strength, cardiovascular endurance, movement quality
Sensory abilities: Five senses
Psychomotor abilities: Coordination, dexterity, reaction time
The Five Factor Model (Others): OCEAN
Incremental predictability of work performance over "g"
Can predict other outcomes (CWB, OCB, turnover, job satisfaction)
Fewer sub-group differences
Critique:
5 factors too few to capture full personality
Conscientiousness correlated with a lot of work behaviours, but not
highly
correlated
Combinations led to higher predictive power than single factors
Functional personality at work
: A combination of the big-5 (the way an individual behaves at work)
Moderated by
employee autonomy
Knowledge
Declarative (knowing that) vs procedural knowledge (knowing how)
Tacit knowledge: Action-oriented, goal-directed knowledge informally acquired
Skills (develop through practice): Task vs people skills
Competencies: General and desirable attributes identified by an organisation (sets of behaviours that are instrumental in the delivery of desired results or outcomes)
A top-down process using organisational core values to derive a set of competencies
Assessment: Objective and standardised procedure for measuring a psychological construct using a sample of behaviour
Tests
Valid tests
Construct validity: Do the constructs measure what they are supposed to measure?
Content validity: Does the test have sufficient coverage of the construct?
Criteria-related validity: Predictive ability
Reliability: Consistency across different times and different test versions
Use generalised and effective tests as they are cost effective
Issues
Bias: Does the test result in errors of prediction for a subgroup?
Fairness: A value judgement about actions or decisions based on test scores. The test can be unbiased, but the results can be unfair.
Culture: Can the test be perceived equally across different cultures?
Ability
tests
Cognitive ability tests
IQ tests
Verbal and numerical ability
Wonderlic Personnel Test/Wonderlic Select: Commercial test measuring general mental ability for job candidates
Good
criterion-related validity
(Pearson's r/correlation coefficient)
Critique: Low job relevance
Spatial relations
Motor and sensory tests: Finger dexterity (Perdue pegboard dexterity test), vision, hearing
Knowledge/skills tests
Job knowledge test
Work sample test: Involves abstracting a portion of the work done in the job and testing the participants on it
High fidelity and direct relevance to the job
Others tests
Situational judgement test: Scenario-based questions probing judgement (scenario and choose best response from options). Assessing job-related knowledge, as well as tacit knowledge and practical intelligence
Predicts task performance over intelligence, personality tests, and job experience
Predicts adaptive performance, CWB, OCB
Smaller sub-group difference
Personality tests: Matching psychological attributes with those successful performers in the same position
For both screening-in and screening-out (filtering out candidates)
Faking
People can have different personalities in different contexts
Incorporate lie scales in the tests
Always cross-checked with other assessments
Integrity tests
Over measures: Attitudes toward theft and self-report theft
Personality-based measures: Linked to Big-5 (e.g. thrill-seeking, hostility, etc.)
Components:
Antisocial behaviour
Socialisation (e.g. emotional stability)
Positive outlook (e.g. follow hostility norms)
Orderliness
Categories
Speed (easy but time crunch) vs Power (difficult but no time crunch)
Speed has greater variability (more effective prediction) but have disadvantages:
Is it relevant to the job?
Introducing unfairness by emphasising speed (e.g. aging, disabilities) --> legal issues
Individual (test given on individual basis) vs Group (test administered to large group of people)
Paper-and-pencil (requires no manipulation) vs Performance (Individual has to manipulate equipment or objects)
Interviews: Must be
structured
(emphasise on ratings)
Advantages: More favourable perception from applicants, place for QnA, negotiation of terms
Situational interviews: Describe in detail how they would respond in a particular situation
Behaviour description interview: What they did in the past
Assessment center: Assessment activities
Multi-trait-multi-approach-multi-assessor method:
Multiple dimensions identified by job analysis
Multiple exercises
Panel of assessors
Assessment done in groups
Activities: Structure interview, simulation/situational exercises, testing
Written materials (provided by applicants)
Weighted application blanks: Assigning points to information given on an application form (needs checking)
Grades: Minimum qualifications, but weak correlation with cognitive ability
Letters of recommendation: Positive distortion is common
Biodata: Biographical information, but possible social desirability effect
Predictive validity above entrance exam scores and personality scores, smaller racial subgroup differences
Ecology model: Underlying model for life history biodata instruments. Proposes that the events that make up a person's history represent choices made by the individual to interact with his or her environment. These choices can signal abilities, interests, and personality characteristics.
Predicting power
Cognitive ability test is best single predictor of performance
Incremental validity
: Combining multiple tests to yield a higher validity than a single existing test
Norming
: Assigning meaning to tests scores