selection testing

To avoid subjectivity in the selection process and attain objectivity various tests are carried out. The types of test used for selection are ability and aptitude tests, intelligence tests and personality questionnaires.

Intelligence tests – this test are designed to measure thinking abilities. This can be manifested by verbal ability, spatial ability and numerical ability. This  tests are concerned with skills and abilities already acquired by an individual, whereas aptitude tests focus on an individual’s potential to undertake specific tasks. Intelligence tests can give an indication of overall mental capacity, and have been used for selection purposes for some considerable time

Aptitude tests – they test the innate skills and re widely used to obtain information about such skill as mechanical ability, clerical and numerical ability and annual dexterity. For a company to devise these tests, it usually expensive since the tests have to be validated before they can be implemented with any confidence.

Attainment tests – these test measures the depth of knowledge or grasp of skills which has been learned in the past usually at school or college. This typical attainment tests are those which measure typing abilities, spelling ability and mental arithmetic.

Personality test – devices from clinical situation – the aim of the test if so to identify an individual’s principal personality traits or dimensions e.g. interested or extroverted, sociable or isolate. Personality questionnaires allow quantification of characteristics that are important to job performance and difficult to measure by other methods. The debate about the value of personality tests is ongoing, and centre around lack of agreement on four key issues

·       The extent to which personality is measurable;

·       The extent to which personality remains stable over time and cross different situations;

·       The extent to which certain personality characteristics can be identified as being necessary or desirable for a particular job;

·       The extent to which completion of a questionnaire can provide sufficient information about an individual’s personality to make meaningful inferences about their suitability for a job.

 Armstrong (2001) lists four characteristics of a good test:

·     It is a sensitive measuring instrument which discriminates well between subjects.

·     It has been standardized on a representative and sizeable sample of the population for which it is intended so that any individual’s score can be interpreted in relation to others.

·     It is reliable in the sense that it always measures the same thing. A test aimed at measuring a particular characteristic should measure the same person at different times.

It is valid in the sense that it measures the characteristics which the test is intended to measure. Thus, an intelligence test should measure intelligence and not simply verbal facility. (Armstrong, 2001: 473) Personality questionnaires allow quantification of characteristics that are important to job performance and difficult to measure by other methods. The debate about the value of personality tests is ongoing, and centre around lack of agreement on four key issues