Measuring Manual Dexterity with the GATB: Wooden versus Plastic Pegboards

As part of a ten-year longitudinal study of vocational development being conducted in the Department of Vocational Education at The Pennsylvania State University, it was decided to administer the GATB to an entire ninth grade class of 1,050 boys and girls. Because both wooden and plastic pegboards were being used to assess GATB aptitude manual dexterity (M), it was decided to compare the scores obtained on the two different types of boards. Results of the study indicate that those students who were tested using the wooden boards performed significantly better than did students tested on the plastic boards. Converted score differences for aptitude M ranged from 3 to 26 points with an average difference of 11 points.     

The Experience of Underemployment

The authors conducted an exploratory study of male college graduates who experienced underemployment to discover significant events occurring during this experience and the feelings attached to those events.     

THE EFFECTS OF ITEM CONTEXT IN FAKING PERSONNEL SELECTION INVENTORIES1

Little is known about the fakability of empirically developed measures when such measures are removed from their original instrument or battery for use in selection decisions. A research design was created that experimentally induced motivation similar to that in employment settings. Experimental group subjects were randomly assigned to two conditions. One condition required S's to complete the entire Strong Vocational Interest Blank while the other condition required subjects to complete only those items which are scored on the psychologist's scale. When results of the two conditions were compared for the “motivated” subjects, those presented with the psychologist scale items only obtained significantly higher scale scores than those who completed the entire SVIB. Although additional research on other instruments should be conducted, these results indicate caution in the practice of retaining only the valid scale items for instruments used in employment settings. While maintaining the original context does not totally eliminate the problem of response distortion it makes the problem much less pronounced.     

The Dynamics of Unemployment for Social Assistance Recipients

In this exploratory research study, the experience of unemployment and helping or hindering factors for social assistance recipients is examined.