Psychological Testing in the Workplace

Psychological Testing in the Workplace

Introduction

Companies use psychological testing in delivering an enormous amount of information for future employee candidates as well as present employees within the company. There are different types of psychological testing that employers use to determine who is well fitted as a new hire as those same tests will be administered to retain current employees. The three that will be addressed in this paper will be characteristics, knowledge and skills, and personality testing. The level of degree deemed to be useful depends of the validity and reliability of these psychological tests. Each company would face the legal and ethical issues that may be implicated administering these types of tests.

3 Types of Psychological Testing

Many types of tests are available and can assess hundreds of individual characteristics. The course of nature for the characteristic of interest aids in determining which test should be administered. Characteristics of test have four subcategories are as follows: group versus individually administered tests, close-ended versus open-ended, paper and pencil versus performance, and power versus speed tests (Spector, 2012). A group test can be administered to several people at once. An individual test is one that is given to one single examinee. Closed-ended tests the examinee must choose one from several answer choices. An open-ended exam the examinee comes up with a response as a whole rather than choosing a correct answer. Paper and pencil testing is on paper or print-outs and examinees will respond in written from with a pencil. Performance test involves the examinee to manipulate apparatuses, equipment, materials, or tools. A power test allows the examinee an unlimited time to complete the test being administered whereas; a speed test the examinee only is allowed a specific amount of time (Spector, 2012).

An achievement test also referenced to as the knowledge and skills test is designed to assess a person's current level of proficiency which differs from the ability test in reference to assessing the individual's capability of learning (Spector, 2012). The employers administer this knowledge and skill test to future candidates apply for certain jobs within the company. This allows human resource personnel to assess the potential employees' knowledge in which they are applying for the position and their skills that will be deemed useful for the company. The emphasizing difference between knowledge and skill test is placed upon the candidates' previous knowledge and skill in performing these specific tasks.

Spector ...