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THE CASE FOR APTITUDE TESTING
Reprinted from AMERICAN MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION'S HR FocusBy Samuel F. Vilgiate, Ph.D.
The purpose of aptitude testing is not to tell you whom to hire; it is to tell you whom you are hiring. Failure to understand this has generated much misunderstanding. Indeed, managers must make decisions about people: selecting them, assigning them, training them and promoting them. How best to go about making these decisions has been the subject of continuous controversy, especially when it comes to the role of aptitude testing in employee selection.
Yet, it seems obvious that while you can do away with both psychological testing and psychologists, you cannot do away with psychology. Everybody uses psychology, including those responsible for interviewing and selecting personnel, regardless of their credentials or training. Indeed, it can be argued that testers who are well-intentioned but untrained, and academicians who understand tests but not the requirements of industry, provide most of the ammunition for the critics of testing.
Another reason for the controversy over testing is that all too often the issue is framed incorrectly, even by those who are attempting to be objective. For example, the National Research Council Committee on Ability Testing completed a landmark four-year study in 1982. Commenting on the findings, one observer wrote that the Committee could find no reliable evidence that the alternatives to testing, such as interviews, educational record and past work history, are "Sequally informative, equally adequate technically, and also economically and politically viable."
It is a mistake to frame the issue as a matter of either testing or some array of alternatives. The real question is not whether testing provides a better basis for predicting performance than interviews, academic credentials and work history. Rather, the question is whether the addition of testing can improve the selection process. Viewed in this light, testing can be kept in proper perspective.
It has been said that knowledge is power. In the personnel selection process, in-depth knowledge of a candidate's strengths and weaknesses provided by comprehensive aptitude testing gives management the power both to make better selection decisions and to enhance the employee's performance, not merely to predict it. It does so in five ways:
Targeted Reference Checking.
Whereas under most circumstances references are not very useful even when you are able to contact former supervisors and associates, knowing which questions to ask can make all the difference. A reference may not volunteer much, but he or she is unlikely to lie if asked a direct question regarding an existing problem area.
Quality Control.
The discipline imposed by comprehensive testing counterbalances the universal temptation to hire "warm bodies" just to get the requisition filled. It also helps to control interviewer bias and stereotyping. Yet a third quality-control element is diminution of the well-known "halo effect," which often leads to an able individual's being employed for the wrong opportunity.
More Effective Training.
Comprehensive aptitude testing allows management to tailor training to specifically identified needs-an individualized versus shotgun approach. It also helps to eliminate costs and frustrations of trying to train the untrainable.
More Effective Supervision.
It is much easier to supervise people who are well-suited to their jobs. Because testing can reveal what might require months or even years of association to learn, a manager can supervise each individual according to his or her needs from the very beginning, avoiding both oversupervising and undersupervising. A manager can also avoid inadvertent exposure of individual weaknesses. In addition, there is a longer-term educational process involved. As a manager gains experience in the use of reports based on comprehensive aptitude testing, he or she becomes increasingly sophisticated in the application of a behavioral approach to management rather than an intuitive approach.
Improved Morale/Esprit de Corps.
Testing makes a promote-from-within policy viable by helping to select high quality, promotable, entry-level talent. At the same time, it helps avoid the effects of the Peter Principle: Quality people also bring out the best in each other. (On the other hand, Gresham's Law also applies to the personnel field: Poor employees will drive out the good.) Another morale builder is that the process of employee selection and promotion is perceived as being more fair (as opposed to being influenced by apple polishing and politics).
There are poor tests, and there are incompetent testers. Moreover, even when it is done right, testing is no panacea. But decisions must be made, and to do so without the benefit of the information provided by comprehensive aptitude testing is a disservice to all concerned.
Dr. Vilgiate, an industrial psychologist, is vice president and director of Evaluation Services for Aptitude Testing for Industry, an employee selection consulting firm headquartered in Glendale, California
Copyright 1991, American Management Association. All rights reserved.
