Assessment and Selection in the 21st Century: Fairness, Equity and Competitive Advantage

This book is about the assessment of people in the workplace and examines what assessment is and the various forms it takes and how these principles and practices can be applied to improve job satisfaction, productivity and the fairness with which organisational objectives are achieved.

Section l examines some of the background and social issues that are shaping the assessment enterprise and the view that management in general and psychological assessment is part of the neo-liberal assault on the world and an expression of colonial hegemony . Psychological assessment techniques and methods are increasingly being seen by some as biased against certain groups. The nature of measurement and assessment are evaluated and the basic principles of drawing up a psychological measuring instrument, as well as the history of assessment in the workplace, are outlined.

Section II examines basic psychometric theory, including how assessment test scores are interpreted, and combined to yield a single pass/fail, accept/reject or go/no go decision. The issues of reliability (or consistency) and those of validity, i.e., the extent to which a measure measures what it claims to measure, are examined. In Chapter 7, the concepts of fairness and equity are outlined, especially gender and cultural equity that are so important in many parts of the world today.

Section III examines how assessment principles are applied in organizations (Chapter 8) and with respect to Intelligence (Chapter 9), Personality (Chapter 10), Competencies (Chapter 11), Honesty and Integrity (Chapter 12), Interviewing (Chapter 13) and Assessment Centres (Chapter 14). The final section pulls all the threads together and asks What next?

Alwyn Moerdyk is a retired academic from Rhodes University, a leading South African University and is the author of several textbooks widely used in South African institutions of higher education, both in the assessment and in the wider Occupational Psychology. He holds a Masters Degree in Psychology and has worked in the academic, research and private sectors.

Adrian Furnham was educated at the London School of Economics where he obtained a distinction in an MSc Econ., and at Oxford University where he completed a doctorate (D.Phil) in 1981. He has subsequently earned a D.Sc (1991) and D.Litt (1995) degree. Previously a lecturer in Psychology at Pembroke College, Oxford, he was Professor of Psychology at University College London from 1992 to 2018. He is currently Adjunct Professor of Leadership at the BI: Norwegian Business School (2009). He has written over 1300 scientific papers and 95 books. He is on the editorial board of a number of international journals, as well as the past elected President of the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences. He is also a founder director of Applied Behavioural Research Associates (ABRA), a psychological consultancy established over 30 years ago.