Validity of an assessment centre as a measure of competency ratings for development in a large financial institution

Bashabe, Barbara

Validity of an assessment centre as a measure of competency ratings for development in a large financial institution

Master Thesis

2006

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Organisational Psychology

Faculty

Faculty of Commerce

Abstract

Assessment centres are used to make decisions for employee advancement and development within organisations. These centres comprise of a number of instruments which are used to establish competencies needed to perform effectively. The validity of this measure is yet to be fully ascertained as previous studies have shown that although assessment centres have predictive validity, they lack construct validity. The research study therefore set out to establish whether assessment centres used within financial institutions have predictive validity but lack construct validity. For purposes of this study, two sets of data each comprising of responses from 120 and 91 employees were used. This data was retrieved from a financial institution within the Western Cape. Contrary to previous studies, there was low predictive validity within this study. Some of the factors that could have contributed to the low correlation between performance and assessment ratings include a rather small sample that was used, having different criterion being measured in the evaluations than in the assessment centres, range restriction, complexity of assessing behaviour, and having a number of dimensions from which to derive an Overall Assessment Rating (OAR). However, similar to previous studies, this study also found low construct validity amongst the ratings. In addition, a further analysis indicated that both performance and personality measures are valid methods in predicting performance.

Description

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-86).

Keywords

Organisational Psychology

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