Ethical and Fair Testing in the Workplace

Ethical and Fair Testing in the Workplace

Integrity tests are personality tests that are created to evaluate the tendency of the applicant to be dependable, trustworthy, and honest. The Employee Reliability Inventory (ERI) is a test that was created to aid in the selection program of a company before employment. Its main aim is to help employers to hire productive and reliable employees. The test is useful when there are concerns about uncontrolled and unplanned turnover, property deviance, and production deviance. The ERI is usually self-administered and criterion-keyed, having true or false kinds of behaviour inventory. It has 80 statements on seven different scales: courtesy, trustworthiness, job commitment, emotional maturity, safety, conscientiousness, and self-discipline (Psychometrics, 2017).

The Big Five Personality Test can be a good and more psychometrically sound alternative to the Myers-Brigg Type Indicator (MBTI). The MBTI has been criticized in regard to its reliability and validity (Lake et al., 2019). The Big Five is composed of 5 different traits: neuroticism, openness to experience, extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Each trait ranges between 2 extremes, and most individuals are believed to fall in the middle (Pletzer et al., 2019).

The Big Five traits are commonly considered to be universal, implying that these traits tend to cut across different cultures. This cultural diversity makes the test applicable in most countries, with the exception of some North American countries (Yuan, 2020). A 6^th trait known as Honesty-Humility has been proposed to suit Asian and English cultures, describing individuals high in the trait as modest, fair, and sincere and those low in it as self-centred, manipulative, and narcissistic (Worthy et al., 2020). In various studies, the main proposal made to the Big Five is an addition of other traits to incorporate various cultures. This implies that the five are considered universal traits but only need a few adjustments to enhance the test’s cultural applicability. The ERI is also considered somewhat universal in its applicability across cultures. Borofsky (2018) claims that the test conforms to the four-fifths thumb rule found in the Uniform Guidelines and has moderately strong predictive validity across cultures.

Among police officers, personality testing is conducted to select individuals who might be good at their jobs and bar out those at higher risk of misconduct. Tests such as the Personality Assessment Inventory, PAI, and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, MMPI-2, are commonly used to test for emotional stability, and others can be used to test for counterproductive behaviours like antisocial behaviour and lying (Goldfinger, 2018). Such tests help screen out police officers capable of misconduct earlier in the selection process. However, most psychological tests used among police officers tend to focus on issues of misconduct, yet Goldfinger (2018) claims that misconduct among police officers is rare, and those who engage in it are rarely caught. Consequently, there is a need to improve the tests so as to better predict the possibility of misconduct. Additionally, police departments are said to have varying needs and functions; therefore, an officer in a particular setting is likely to be unproductive in another (Goldfinger, 2018). Therefore, personality tests might not exactly fit officers to certain roles.

Response bias is a common ethical problem that might arise when using psychological tests in the workplace. According to Goldfinger (2018), when high-stakes tests are made, applicants are likely to hide problematic personality traits or respond in a manner that is expected to please the employer. Labelling is also a key issue that might arise. Some psychological tests fail to consider cultural diversities, and some traits might be attributed to specific cultures. This is likely to cause problems in the interpretation of the results.

References

Borofsky, G. (2018). User’s Manual For The Employee Reliability Inventory. Bay State Psychological Associates, Inc.

Goldfinger, K. B. (2018). Psychological testing in everyday life: History, science, and practice. SAGE Publications.

Lake, C. J., Carlson, J., Rose, A., & Chlevin-Thiele, C. (2019). Trust in name brand assessments: The case of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The Psychologist-Manager Journal, 22(2), 91-107.

Pletzer, J. L., Bentvelzen, M., Oostrom, J. K., & De Vries, R. E. (2019). A meta-analysis of the relations between personality and workplace deviance: Big Five versus HEXACO. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 112, 369-383.

Psychometrics. (2017). Employee Reliability Inventory: User’s Guide. Retrieved January 26, 2023, from https://www.psychometrics.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ERI-User-Manual-v2.pdf

Worthy, L., Lavigne, T., & Romero, F. (2020). Culture and Psychology. Glendale Community College.

Yuan, L. (2020). Big Five Cross-Cultural Validity Issues. Personality Psychology. Retrieved January 26, 2023, from https://personality-psychology.com/big-five-cross-cultural-validity-issues/.

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Prior to beginning work on this discussion forum, review the Pre-Employment Testing Links to an external site. Webpage and read the following:

Ethical and Fair Testing in the Workplace

Chapters 9 and 10 in the course textbook
Methodological and Statistical Advances in the Consideration of Cultural Diversity in Assessment: A Critical Review of Group Classification and Measurement Invariance TestingLinks to an external site.
Trust in Name Brand Assessments: The Case of the Myers-Briggs Type IndicatorDownload Trust in Name Brand Assessments: The Case of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
When psychological assessments are used in the workplace, they primarily aim to predict and measure workplace-related outcomes. Assessments should be valid and fair to every job candidate and employee required to take a test. Psychological assessments are often used to identify employees’ strengths and weaknesses for talent development. In this discussion, you will take the role of an industrial-organizational psychologist consulting with human resources managers who oversee hiring for their organizations. The managers are interested in determining how psychological tests can be utilized in the selection process and talent development. To complete this discussion, your post must be at least 500 words and include the following:

Recommend at least one psychometrically sound integrity test for employee selection. Include a brief description of the test you recommend and what it measures.
Recommend at least one test that would be a more psychometrically sound option for personality assessment in the workplace than the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Include a brief description of the test you recommend and what it measures.
Defend your test choices by briefly summarizing specific factors related to cultural diversity that should be considered.
Debate the pros and cons of using psychological tests in the selection of police officers.
Evaluate key ethical issues to consider when utilizing psychological tests in the workplace.
Support ideas you share in your post by referencing the required resources for this week and at least one additional peer-reviewed journal article published within the last fifteen years.