Assessing the Effectiveness of Integrity Tests: A Review

Integrity tests, and other methods of assessing "honesty," are widely used in pre-employment screening, as most employers want to minimize dishonest and counterproductive behavior among their employees. This review applies a structured framework to the research literature to assess the general effectiveness of integrity tests. The framework employed evaluates integrity tests in terms of their scope, accuracy (reliability), relevance (validity), fairness, acceptability, and practicality. Such a framework based on these six aspects allows for an objective and systematic analysis of the qualities of integrity tests, as well as a structure for the evaluation of other methods of assessing honesty and integrity. For both narrow, overt measures of integrity and broader personality-based measures, research has shown favorable evidence of reliability, validity, fairness, and practicality. Even though in terms of acceptability research has indicated that integrity tests are viewed neither positively nor negatively, there is still considerable debate surrounding the issues of false positive rates and labeling. Comparisons with other methods of assessing honesty and integrity are also reviewed.