As high-stakes use of tests increases, it becomes vital that test developers and test users communicate clearly about the accuracy and limitations of the scores generated by a test after it is assembled and used. A procedure is described for portraying the accuracy of test scores. It can be used in setting accuracy targets during form construction…

A previous review of the effects of stressors on military performance shows that different stressors have different effects, the effects of stress vary with the type of skill being measured, the presence of certain stressors leads to decrements in performance, and incident-related stress accompanying these stressors can further impair performance.…

Holland's Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) and Super and Forrest's Career Development Inventory (CDI) are recommended in the their respective manuals for use with secondary school students regardless of academic ability. Scores on both instruments for 245 suburban high school seniors in this investigation were well below reported means.…

Professionals often seem to view guidelines, standards, and the like, not to mention legal mandates, as adding to their work load. It is argued that a widely promulgated set of test taker rights would actually make the work of personnel selection professionals easier. The California court case Soroka v. Dayton-Hudson Corporation, in which test…

Soldiers who exit the Army before the end of their first term of service represent lost investments in terms of both direct costs (e.g., training costs) and indirect costs (e.g., force instability). The Army would benefit from pre-enlistment information that could identify those individuals most likely to complete their first term. This paper…

The differences between multiple-choice, simulated, and concurrent tests of software-skills proficiency are discussed. For three basic human-resource functions, the advantages of concurrent tests (i.e., those that use the actual application software) include true performance-based assessment, unconstrained response alternatives, and increased job…

Open testing and test disclosure legislation has fostered a renewed interest in the problems and issues associated with test equating. This paper focuses on a specific application of test equating, that of professional and occupational testing for certification and licensure. Test equating is the process of making test scores from different forms…

A review of court cases, involving the use of various standardized tests, highlights the kinds of test validity and the interpretation by the courts of test fairness in setting personnel selection standards. Guidelines established by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) are shown to support the use of predictive validity in…

A study examined the collection of 27 interest and values instruments in the review chapters of the third edition of "A Counselor's Guide to Career Assessment Instruments" (Kapes, Mastie, and Whitfield 1994) to determine their commonalities and differences. The instruments were described and compared on these sets of characteristics: name of…

A study examined the stability of career interests of adolescents using the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (SCII). Participants were 271 freshmen from a rural Midwestern state who took the SCII two times, 3 years apart. Based on this sample, comparisons were made on occupational themes and basic interests of the SCII. Results revealed that…

The potential usefulness of self-assessment of low-level aptitudes, such as basic or elementary reading, writing, and calculating, was explored in a test validation context, following the model of B. Davey (1980, 1990). Self-assessments were sought to provide criterion-related or construct validities that might otherwise be unobtainable for some…

The development and validation of the General Management In-Basket (GMIB) is described. The GMIB is a theory-based generic in-basket simulation, designed to assess supervisory and management skills independent of any job classification. Three of the 15 in-basket items in the GMIB are critical and are scored on a 0-5 scale. The remaining 12 items…

This study examined evaluation processes used by Arkansas school boards to evaluate their superintendents, and compared the data with results from a recent national survey reporting techniques used in the evaluation of superintendents, data about who had input in conducting the evaluation, criteria used in the evaluation process, and traits of an…

Recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in the use of response latencies in psychological assessment. Some research has suggested that response times associated with answering personality and integrity questionnaires may be useful in differentiating among honest responders and individuals who are lying. Using an experimental paradigm…

A study involving 169 graduate nursing students (4 males and 165 females) was conducted to assess the construct validity of the Adult Career Concerns Inventory (ACCI). The ACCI is designed to assess career concerns of adults of any age and occupation. Focused on the "planfulness" and exploration factors of the theoretical model of…