| Abstract: | Previous research has suggested that the quality of judgmental validation criteria may improve depending on the increase of opportunity for the rater to observe ratees’ job performances. This study investigated whether the validity of an assessment centre increases with opportunity to observe. Subjects were engineers and applied scientists from the Research and Development (R&D) units of seven German high-technology companies. A total of 6 personality scales, 10 cognitive ability tests and 9 work samples was administered to 155 subjects. Performance appraisals were collected from their supervisors. Assessors were trained organizational psychologists who were not members of the participating organizations. A total score (‘assessment centre score’) was computed by averaging the 25 predictors after standardization of each predictor. The (uncorrected) validity of this assessment centre was r = 0.37. In addition, opportunity to observe (i.e. amount of time the performance rater was the ratee’s supervisor) emerged as a moderator: for example validities were r = 0.09 (opportunity to observe ≤ 2 years) and r = 0.50 (opportunity to observe> 2 years). |
