HR DECISION$-$MAKING EXERCISE: ASSESSING

THE VALIDITY OF A NEW TEST FOR HIRING EMPLOYEES

A test vendor has approached the vice president of HR in your company with a new test of conscientiousness. The test vendor claims that the new conscientiousness test is at least as valid as the old test that your company is currently using$-$but the new test is half the price! As a result, the VP of HR has tasked you with determining whether the company should use this new test of conscientiousness or stick with the old test. This is important, because having a valid test affects hiring decisions regarding hundreds of new employees. Plus, as you know, the test's validity is also important to the legal defensibility of the test.

You have been able to give the new conscientiousness test to $200$ current employees on two occasions, $1$ week apart. In addition. you have given these employees the old conscientiousness test, as well as tests of "achievement striving" and "verbal skills." Finally, you also have supervisor performance ratings on file for each employee regarding their organizational citizenship. In other words, you have a lot of what you need to begin to assess the validity of the new test of conscientiousness in terms of predicting job performance!

The correlations among these different tests and measures follow. Note that statistically significant relationships are indicated by an asterisk $(*).$