A comparative study of practitioner perceptions of selection methods in the United Kingdom

Abstract

In this study, 476 participants, divided into occupational psychology (OP)-, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD)-, human resource management (HRM)-qualified, and layperson subgroups, provided their perceptions of the validity, fairness, and frequency of use of employee selection methods. Results of a mixed-effects analysis of covariance revealed that respondent qualification background predicted the degree to which participant validity perceptions were aligned with research-based estimates of validity, F [3, 29.39] = 20.06, p < .001, g 2 = .67. Corrected pairwise comparisons suggested that perceptions of participants with CIPD and HRM backgrounds were not significantly more aligned with research estimates of validity than were the perceptions of laypeople. OP participant validity perceptions were significantly more aligned with research estimates than all other subgroups, (p < .03). Evidence was also found for some between-group consistency regarding frequency-of-use perceptions, but less between-group consistency was found vis-a-vis perceptions of fairness. Implications for decision-making in employee selection are discussed. Practitioner pointsKnowledge about employee selection measures might not be effectively shared between those with CIPD-and HRM-related qualifications versus those with OP-related qualifications. Laypeople and respondents with CIPD-and HRM-related qualifications were found to deviate similarly from up-to-date research findings about the validity of selection measures. Respondents with OP-related qualifications were more closely aligned with up-to-date findings about the validity of selection measures than were other comparison groups.

Selection Tool Use: A Focus on Personality Testing in Canada, the United States, and Germany

“…It is also worth noting that the survey conducted by Ryan et al (2015) did not assess the prevalence of some important selection tools, such as interviewing and résumé reviewing. Overall, much of the extant selection tool use research is dated (e.g., Rowe, Williams, & Day, 1994;Ryan & Sackett, 1987); focused on highly specific groups, such as industrial and organizational psychologists who were almost all PhD holders (Ryan & Sackett, 1987) or higher level HR employees (Ryan et al, 2015), or focused on broad groups, such as general employees (i.e., not HR practitioners; Mann & Chowhan, 2011); or was conducted only within a specific geographic region, such as Canada (Mann & Chowhan, 2011), Germany (Diekmann & König, 2015), or the United Kingdom (Jackson, Dewberry, Gallagher, & Close, 2018). We will advance the extant knowledge of selection tool use by reporting the results of a new survey of HR practitioners that utilized a geographically representative sampling strategy across Canada and the US.…”

Communicating the validity of structured job interviews with graphical visual aids

“…Finally, we recognize the limitations of our sample: not all participants were hiring professionals. Recent research, however, suggests that human resource professionals have an “amazing diversity of thought” toward selection practices, and their attitudes and preferences toward hiring practices are similar to the lay population (Jackson et al, ; König et al, ). Moreover, we see no theoretical reason for why the interpretation of statistical graphical visual aid should be influenced by experience in a human resource profession.…”

“…The job interview is one of the most widely used preemployment assessment methods (Jackson, Dewberry, Gallagher, & Close, ). Personnel selection research has consistently demonstrated the marked improvement in the predictive validity of structured over unstructured job interviews (Huffcutt & Arthur, ).…”

“…Past research has demonstrated that most experimental findings are reproducible from an MTurk sample and that the service is a valuable platform for conducting workplace‐related experimental research (Highhouse & Zhang, ; Zwaan et al, ). Although a sample of adults may not generalize to hiring experts, recent research has found no difference in attitudes toward personnel selection methods between a lay population and human resource professionals (Jackson et al, ). We also recognize that MTurk data are prone to issues of participant non‐naiveté, inattentive responding, and cultural invariance (Chandler, Mueller, & Paolacci, ; Feitosa, Joseph, & Newman, ; Fort, Adda, & Cohen, ); therefore, we took steps to ensure that participants did not participate in more than one of our studies, and inattentive responders were identified with multiple attention check questions.…”

Implementing evidence-based assessment and selection in organizations: A review and an agenda for future research

“…A practical rather than theoretical explanation for the science-practice gap may be that practitioners have diverse educational backgrounds, including (human resource) management, I/O psychology, and other academic or professional qualifications, and hence also differ in their knowledge of the selection-and decision-making literature (Jackson et al, 2018). Jackson et al (2018) compared perceptions of validity to the actual validity of 13 employee assessment methods among U.K. practitioners (n ¼ 193) and laypeople (n ¼ 283). They found that occupational First review round (titles and abstracts):…”