The Promise and Pitfalls of Selection for Public Safety Positions
- Latino Officers Claim In Suit They Were Passed Over, Given Mall Duty (February 17, 2014, Adolfo Flores, LA Times (article regarding Westminster, CA)
- Ex-Cops’ Racial Discrimination Lawsuit Against Anchorage Police Goes to Jury (March 26, 2014, Casey Grove, Anchorage Daily News)
- Sheriff’s Department Hired Officers with Histories of Misconduct (December 1, 2013, Robert Faturechi, LA Times, article describing the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department)
Large or small, city or village, county or state, public sector jurisdictions all face the problems inherent in public safety entry level selection and promotion. As the headlines above demonstrate, police and fire selection is high stakes and attracts a great deal of attention from media and citizens, not to mention the interest of unions, attorneys, and federal regulatory agencies. The paradox of public safety selection is that many jurisdictions spend more money on police and fire assessment, and in many cases engage in state-of-the-art techniques, and yet it is in this area that public sector organizations experience the most criticism, complaints, and costly lawsuits. Thus, regardless of the size and type of organization, public safety selection is difficult, time and money intensive, high stakes, and contentious.
In this, my first blog for IPMA-HR’s Assessment Services Review, I am going to summarize some of the conclusions from our recent book chapter on fire and police assessment and selection (for the full article see Barrett, G. V., Doverspike, D., & Young, C, 2010, The special case of public sector police and fire selection. In J. C. Scott & D, Reynolds, Handbook of Workplace Assessment: Evidence-Based Practices for Selecting and Developing Organizational Talent, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, pp. 437-462). In doing so, I will incorporate discussions of recent trends and developments in public safety selection. Although there are many fine consultants who offer services in the area of police and fire selection, I will illustrate a number of my points by referring to assessments offered by IPMA-HR.
Basic Parameters of Public Safety Selection
When discussing public safety assessment, we can divide topics in a 2X2 matrix. The major dimensions would be the type of job or profession, police or fire, and then whether the selection is for entry level or promotional. Fire positions may or may not include an Emergency Medical Service (EMS) component, and we are already seeing a trend toward breaking EMS out as a separate function.
A frequent difference between larger and smaller jurisdictions is in the emphasis on previous training and experience. Smaller cities often require that candidates already have some type of police or fire certification, especially EMS certification for fire. Larger cities may limit their minimum qualifications to a simple requirement of a high school degree.
Regardless of size, many jurisdictions utilize external consultants or testing companies in the process of creating a selection battery. As will be discussed below, the process of testing has embraced new technologies, although for practical reasons many public organizations still use various types of paper-and-pencil, multiple choice tests.
One area in which technology has had an obvious influence is in the creation of recruitment websites, which often given in-depth information on the testing process. A simple google search will lead to the identification of a number of interesting recruitment websites. For those interested in assessment, the San Diego website features extensive discussion of the various components in the selection battery. My colleagues at the City of Columbus also have a very well-constructed site and also utilize a YouTube video to offer an overview of the physical test.
A written test or battery constitutes only one part of the screening process. Other components for entry level positions include a physical ability test, background investigation, psychological evaluation, and medical examination. For promotional tests, the administration or civil service commission must decide whether the test will be limited to internals, or whether external candidates will be permitted; of course, in some cases the testing process may be eliminated by simply promoting the most senior person. (more…)
Meet Dennis Doverspike: Our New Writer on Assessment Topics
First, we would like to take this opportunity to thank Bob Burd for the informative ASR articles he has written over the last year. Bob has decided to take his retirement a bit more seriously and will therefore no longer be providing articles for ASR. Bob, you will be missed, but we all wish you a very happy retirement!
Second, we are pleased to announce that Dennis Doverspike (Ph.D., ABPP) is joining the ASR team and will be submitting his first article soon!
Dr. Doverspike is a full professor of psychology at the University of Akron, senior fellow of the Institute for Life-Span Development and Gerontology, and director of the Center for Organizational Research. He is certified as a specialist in industrial-organizational psychology and organizational and business consulting by the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP). He is also a licensed psychologist in the State of Ohio.
Dr. Doverspike has over 30 years of experience working with consulting firms and public and private sector organizations, including 15 years as executive vice president of Barrett & Associates. Services provided include individual assessments, statistical analysis, development of large scale assessment systems, job evaluation and job analysis, and expert witness services.
The author of two books, 16 book chapters, over 150 other professional publications, and over 100 conference presentations, Dr. Doverspike has also served as an expert witness in 10 court cases and assisted with the preparation of expert testimony in over 75 additional cases.
Dr. Doverspike received his doctorate in psychology in 1983 from the University of Akron. He earned a Master of Science in psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, and a Bachelor of Science from John Carroll University. He has taught courses at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, directed dissertations, theses and practicums.
We welcome Dr. Doverspike to the team and look forward to the valuable insights and knowledge he has to offer! Look for his first article on police and fire selection next week…
Selection by Design: Biodata and Its Uses (Part II)
Now we’ll get into more of the details surrounding the development of a biodata instrument. To help illustrate how such instruments are developed — and how the collection and scoring of this type of information can enhance selection systems — we’ll review the development of IPMA-HR’s Correctional Officer Biodata Questionnaire (CO-BDQ) through its Technical Report, which describes in detail the steps IPMA-HR and Bruce Davey and Associates (BDA) took to develop and validate the 120-item test.
By the end of this article, you should have a clearer picture of what information is gathered in order to develop a biodata instrument, how it relates to the job, how candidates are tested and how their results determine how good of a “fit” they are with the profile developed of successful job performers. Keep in mind throughout that, as with any selection instrument, the CO-BDQ had to be two things: reliable (i.e., measure what it measures consistently) and valid (i.e., measure what it is supposed to measure).
Developers wanted the CO-BDQ to measure the potential for good job performance coupled with low probability of turnover — doing this consistently would prove its reliability. Because of the nature of this type of instrument and the type of information it gathers and utilizes, extra effort had to be made to demonstrate its efficacy. (more…)
Selection by Design: Biodata and Its Uses
Those involved in the hiring process generally agree: the more you know about each candidate, the more likely you are to make good hiring decisions. To that end, successful selection systems — i.e., valid and reliable — for police and corrections officers typically do not rely on just one type of test. As the term “systems” suggests, selection specialists develop a battery of tests and methods to increase the accuracy of their agency’s hiring decisions.
Job analyses plays a critical part in the development of effective public safety selection systems by successfully identifying the tasks involved in the job, as well as the knowledge, skills, abilities and personal characteristics (KSAPs) necessary to perform them. While test instruments are developed to measure the degree to which candidates possess the prerequisite KSAPs, not all KSAPs identified in the job analyses are measured.
Deciding which KSAPs would be left out was primarily a matter of how easy it was to measure. If it could be measured by traditional test instruments, such as multiple-choice written tests and structured interviews, then it was included. As a result, exam and selection plan outlines focused on dividing the KSAPs based on the availability and ability of test instruments: if a KSAP could not be measured or if measuring it was too expensive or time-consuming, it was added to the “no” column. (more…)
Introducing OTAS – Your new online test implementation solution!
IPMA-HR’s Assessment Services Department would like to announce a new method of test implementation, the Online Test Administration Service, or OTAS for short!
It has taken many years to find the right partner to allow us to take our tests to the online space and a few more after that to test out and tinker with it, in order to get it just right.
So it brings us great pleasure that starting today, you can administer the following tests via OTAS:
Police Supervisor (PSUP) Series
Our goal is to get most of our test catalog up and ready for OTAS implementation by the end of 2014.
To get started, you can visit the OTAS landing page, read through the FAQs, or take a sample test, from the candidate perspective.
We want you to keep in mind that the OTAS system will change and improve with your use and feedback. This will be an evolving product, so get excited for the future.
Stay tuned to the ASR for followup posts detailing additional features and details about this new system. We are very excited to finally be able to share it with you.
Interpreting the Test Response Data Report
Perhaps it is a character flaw, but I have never enjoyed reading long technical reports. In my early years as a practitioner in Human Resources, I was typically so busy that I did my best to gain the key information I needed from written materials by skimming them. This approach worked a large percentage of the time and yet there was more than one time when I would have benefited from having read an entire document thoroughly.
My days of skimming ended when one of the jurisdictions I had just started working for was sued by the Department of Justice for patterns and practices of discrimination in their entry-level hiring and promotional processes. One of the important lessons that came out of defending that lawsuit was how critical it is to read all important documents thoroughly.
In that regard, if you are one of the jurisdictions who has made the choice to utilize IPMA-HR’s public safety tests, you may be overlooking a wealth of information if you do not take the time to read thoroughly the “Test Response Data Report,” which is available to Test Security Agreement signers on request. Review of this report will provide you with some key information regarding the test and how your candidates performed in comparison to how all test takers combined performed.
The beauty of this report is in its simplicity. Unlike typical research studies that are weighed down with a lot of technical jargon, this report comes complete with all the information necessary to understand it. While a background in statistics may be helpful in applying significance to some of the information, it is not required to understand the report. To its credit, the document also provides a concise explanation of adverse impact and makes it clear that adverse impact does not equal discrimination. (more…)