The Effects of Order of Exercise Presentation on Assessment Center Performance: One Standardization Concern

• Published in: Personnel psychology 1978-04, Vol.31 (1), p.36
• Main Authors: Cohen, Stephen L, Sands, Larry
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Assessment Centers (Personnel); Centers; Group Discussion; Human resource management; Personnel; Personnel selection; Problem solving; Self Directed Groups; Skills; Standardization; Testing; Validation
• ISSN: 0031-5826; 1744-6570

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of exercise order on Assessment Center performance. Assessment Center performance was defined by several criteria including individual exercise performance, individual skill performance, and overall Assessment Center performance. It was expected that different order presentation of exercises would differentially influence a participant's performance during the Assessment Center. Sixty-seven government service managers served as candidates in an Assessment Center designed to select for executive potential in a large federal government agency; five different exercises were used in the Assessment Center process including: 1. in-basket, 2. leadership problem, 3. problem-solving exercise, 4. leaderless group discussion I, and 5. leaderless group discussion II. However, the likely expectation that different candidate schedules, in terms of varied presentation order of exercises, would differentially affect Assessment Center performance was not borne out. Since much confidence is placed in Assessment Center results, organizations should be extra careful about inferring the method's validity. Such errors of inference could be very costly to an organization and to an employee's career.