If you haven’t seen the new video featuring our police assessment products, then you’re missing out on pure animated awesomeness!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09J3nV1m4tg
Want to know more about IPMA-HR’s line of police assessment products? Visit us online!
They may not be of a baby panda sneezing, but they’re still pretty awesome! Take a few minutes to check out our new “everything you wanted to know about IPMA-HR’s assessment products in two minutes” video and our new “everything you wanted to know about IPMA-HR’s fire service products in just over a minute” video. You won’t regret it. We promise, it’s better than “CATS.”
Woohoo! The new Assessment Services catalog is available online for viewing — or download your very own copy! What’s new? SO MUCH! I can’t even tell you how cool it is. You really should see for yourself.
Well, okay, here’s a sneak peak: new tests (paging Public Works …), new services (I can take my test from where?!), new and updated publications (setting that passpoint like a pro now!) and new ways to communicate with you (your awesome sense of humor is now available on social media?!) — oh, my!
Check it out! Tell your friends! Tell your dog! Tell your friends and your dog. It’s that awesome.
Happy Black History Month! As you know, every February is reserved as Black History Month as a way to encourage the citizens of America to remember and reflect on important people and events in African American history. As employment test developers and test users, we would especially benefit from reflecting on the civil rights movement, which culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. After all, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent litigation have set strict legal and professional guidelines regarding tests and adverse impact that must be adhered to with care by employment test developers and test users alike.
Today, we’ll review the case of Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (1971) — a major court decision that affects test development and usage.
Duke Power Co. was a public utility company that serviced the general public in the U.S. Carolinas. The company was challenged for putting a policy in place that would inhibit African Americans from transferring out of the labor department — the department with the lowest paying jobs in the company — into other positions.
In 1955, Duke Power Co. imposed the following qualifications for placement in any section of the company, apart from the lowest-paying labor department:
Approximately six years after the Civil Rights Act was signed into law, Willie Griggs and several fellow African American Duke Power Co. employees filed a class action suit against the company for their transfer policy. Griggs and his co-workers argued that the policy unfairly discriminated against African American employees and, therefore, was a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Cognitive ability and aptitude tests like the Wonderlic and Bennett exams are known to have adverse impact against protected groups. Additionally, in the 1970s, approximately only 30 percent of African Americans had completed four years of high school (Educational Attainment by Race and Hispanic Origin, n.d.).
The Decision: The Court ruled that Duke Power Company’s transfer policy did in fact unlawfully discriminate against African Americans. It is important to note that the Court made this decision not because the transfer policy had adverse impact. Although the 
exams used were professionally developed, the Court ruled that “neither [test] was directed or intended to measure the ability to learn to perform a particular job or category of jobs.” In other words, neither exam was shown to be related to any particular position in the company. The Court thus set the prerequisite for all selection procedures: They must be job-related.
The Implications: Unsurprisingly, most public sector agencies these days use cognitive or knowledge-based tests that are job-specific instead of general cognitive ability tests such as the Wonderlic (Sproule, 2009). Test users benefit from using job-specific tests and, if a test from a test development company such as IPMA-HR is administered, it is important to ensure that the test assesses competencies important for effectively performing the job specifically at your agency.
A good starting point for this is to compare the job analysis your agency conducted for the position to the job analysis conducted by the test development company. For more information on job analysis or gauging the job-relatedness of a stock test within your agency, please feel free to email me or comment on this post.
For test developers, the job-relatedness component should be embedded in the test design. IPMA-HR’s Assessment Services Department starts each test development project with a national job analysis as the first step in providing support for job-relatedness. Please check out our website for information on current test development opportunities.
Sources
Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42, U.S.C.
Educational Attainment by Race and Hispanic Origin. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/99statab/sec04.pdf
Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971)
Sproule, C.F. (2009). Rationale and Research Evidence Supporting the Use of Content Validation in Personnel Assessment: A monograph of the International Personnel Assessment Council. International Personnel Testing Council (IPAC).
IPMA-HR’s Assessment Services Department is developing new entry-level Police Officer and promotional Police Lieutenant exams. The first step in the test development process is the development of a job analysis questionnaire to determine the most important tasks, duties and qualifications to perform as police officers and lieutenants. In order to compile a list of duties and qualifications for use in the job analysis questionnaire, we are requesting that police departments submit any job descriptions for the ranks of police officer and police lieutenant. All submitted materials will remain completely confidential. Please forward job descriptions to yrandall@ipma-hr.org. Thank you!
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IPMA-HR is currently seeking participants for a nationwide Office of Fire Marshal/Office of Fire Prevention study. This study is the first step in the development of a new series of tests for positions within the Fire Marshal’s Office/Office of Fire Prevention. In this phase, job incumbents are needed to complete a survey to identify the most important tasks and knowledge, skills, abilities, and personal characteristics (KSAPs) required to perform their job successfully. The questionnaire takes approximately 30 minutes to complete.
Examples of applicable positions include:
If you or someone you know holds one of the above positions or a similar position, we would greatly value your input in developing our newest test series.
Please Note: If your position has a different title than the positions listed above, but is similar in nature, we would still like to hear from you!
Participants will be entered into a raffle with a $500 prize! Participating agencies will also receive a 15% discount toward a future IPMA-HR assessment product purchase. Interested parties can learn more about the project and complete an interest form using the following link:
If you would like to participate or have additional questions please email our Research Associate, Julia Hind-Smith, at jsmith@ipma-hr.org.
The current fiscal environment for many law enforcement agencies requires innovative change in practices and procedures. While we may not be facing the stark challenges of retrenchment budgeting that were common in the 1980s, today many of us have insufficient budgets to achieve all that we seek to accomplish. A joint agency promotional assessment center may enable multiple agencies to realize the benefits of the assessment center at a substantial cost savings.
Human Resource Management costs are significant in public policing. As a rule of thumb 70-90% of any law enforcement agency’s budget is committed to some aspect of Human Resource Management (HRM). These costs have been predicted to grow in the future as a result of any number of factors. But a common factor in any HRM cost equation is the identification, selection and retention of competent and capable supervisors and managers.
Across the nation, several law enforcement agencies have adopted the promotional assessment center as a defensible and fair tool in the selection of supervisors and managers. However, as many readers know only too well – a functional promotional assessment is an expensive tool[i]. The costs present in any one of several forms – including the significant time commitment of both the candidates and assessors; the logistical support required for a successful center (video recording, appropriate exercise spaces, and scheduling trained actors) as well as the extensive and intensive planning required for a successful assessment center process. (more…)
IPMA-HR is in the final stretch of finishing up the validation study on our entry-level firefighter (FF-EL) test series, but we still need your help! We are seeking a few more agencies who have administered a test from the FF-EL series to provide us the scores received by firefighters who were selected for the job.
Once we’ve received these test scores from you, we ask that each firefighter’s supervisor complete a brief 9-question performance evaluation. This will allow us to see whether our tests from the FF-EL series continue to be successful in predicting on-the-job performance.
For your help, you will receive $100 off your agency’s next IPMA-HR assessment order. In addition, your participation in this project will provide direct evidence supporting the validity of these exams and their use in your agency.
If you would like to participate, please visit the following link to provide your test scores:
Our Research Associate, Julia Hind-Smith, will then follow up with you to provide further instructions on completing the performance evaluations. If you have any questions about the study, please feel free to reach out to Julia at jsmith@ipma-hr.org.
(Please Note: All information gathered for this study will remain strictly confidential. The data gathered will be combined with data from other departments and only be reported in the form of group statistics.)
For this month’s blog, I will look at what is one of the hottest questions in private and public-sector personnel selection – “Should we be gamifying our assessments?” In my opinion, the answer is “Yes!” and I will take this blog to explain why.
“Gamification” falls within the larger topic of “how should I incorporate emerging technologies into my assessment strategies.” Now, one might legitimately ask how it is that someone who started doing math on a slide rule can claim to be an expert on emerging technologies. I will simply remind you that Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Paul Allen, Bill Gates, and I were born at roughly the same time. So, despite huge differences in our net worth, we do share a similar generational zeitgeist.
What Does Gamifying Mean?
Gamifying is one type of Technology Enhanced Assessment (TEA). Related types of TEA include:
Gamification (or gamifying) is defined as “the application of game mechanics, elements, and features to non-game environments,” or in this case “the application of game-type elements to assessments used in personnel selection.” This differs from the use of true games in selection, although the difference is probably more of a continuum than a sharp distinction, as both games and gamification can be used in personnel selection. The differences between games and gamification can be summarized as: