Should employers rely on local validation studies or Validity Generalization (VG) to support the use of employment tests in title VII situations?

Public Personnel Management

Volumn 39, Issue 4, 2010, Pages 307-326

  Biddle, Daniel A ^a  

^a Biddle Consulting Group Inc   (United States)

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EID: 78650643471     PISSN: 00910260     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/009102601003900402     Document Type: Article

References (54)

1. Uniform Guidelines - Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Civil Service Commission, Department of Labor, and Department of Justice (August 25, 1978), Adoption of Four Agencies of Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, 43 Federal Register, 38,290-38,315.
2. Joint Standards - American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, and the National Council on Measurement in Education (1999), Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. Washington DC: American Educational Research Association.
3. SIOP Principles - SIOP (Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Inc.) (1987, 2003), Principles for the Validation and Use of Personnel Selection Procedures (3rd and 4th eds). College Park, MD: SIOP.
4. It is noted, however, that the professional standards (i.e., the Joint Standards and SIOP Principles) regard validity as a more universal concept, with five various sources of evidence that can be used in its evaluation (e.g., see the Principles, 2003, p. 4).
5. Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. (1977). Development of a general solution to the problem of validity generalization. Journal of Applied Psychology, 62, 529-540.
6. Hunter, J. E., & Schmidt, F. L. (2004). Methods of meta-analysis: Correcting error and bias in research findings (2nd ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
7. Murphy, K. R. (2003). The logic of validity generalization. In K. R. Murphy (Ed.) Validity generalization: a critical review. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
8. An 80% credibility interval indicates that 90% of the studies will not include a "zero validity" value because it uses a one-tail interval around the mean of the "true validity" population using the standard deviation of infinite-sample effect sizes. So, for positive correlations, 10% are zero or less and 10% lie beyond the upper bound of the interval. And, when the 90% interval does not contain zero, it is said that one can have confidence that a relationship generalizes across those situations examined in the study and can be generalized to new situations.
9. The terms "disparate impact" and "adverse impact" are used interchangeably in this document.
10. 1991 Civil Rights Act (42 U.S.C. §2000e-2[k][1][A][i]).
11. Griggs v. Duke Power Company, 401 U.S. 424 (1971).
12. EEOC v. Atlas Paper, 868 F.2d. 487, 6th Cir., cert. denied, 58 U.S. L.W. 3213, (1989).
13. Albemarle Paper v. Moody, 422 U.S. at 423, 95 S.Ct. 2362 (1975).
14. Landy, F. J. (2003). Validity generalization: then and now. In K. R. Murphy (Ed.), Validity generalization: a critical review (pp. 155-195). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
15. See Contreras v. City of Los Angeles (656 F.2d 1267, 9th Cir., 1981).
16. U.S. v. Commonwealth of Virginia (569 F2d 1300, CA-4 1978, 454 F. Supp. 1077).
17. Waisome v. Port Authority (948 F.2d 1370, 1376, 2d Cir., 1991).
18. Dickerson v. U. S. Steel Corporation, 472 F. Supp. 1304, E.D. Pa. (1978).
19. NAACP Ensley Branch v. Seibels, 13 E.P.D. 11,504 at pp. 6793, 6803, 6806, N.D.Ala. (1977), aff 'd in relevant part, rev'd in other part, 616 F.2d 812,818 and note 15 (5th Cir.), cert. den., 449 U.S. 1061 (1980).
20. EEOC v. Atlas Paper, supra, footnote #24.
21. U.S. v. City of Garland, WL 741295, N.D.Tex. (2004).
22. See, for example: Guardians Association of the New York City Police Dept. v. Civil Service Commission, 630 F.2d 79, 88, 2d Cir., 1980; cert. denied, 452 U.S. 940, 101 S.Ct. 3083, 69 L.Ed.2d 954 (1981).
23. See the Uniform Guidelines (1978), Section 15B6.
24. Brunet v. City of Columbus, 1 F.3d 390, U.S. Ct. App. Sixth Cir. (1993).
25. Boston Chapter, NAACP, Inc., v. Beecher, 504 F.2d 1017, 1021, 1st Cir. (1974).
26. Clady v. County of Los Angeles, 770 F.2d 1421, 1428, 9th Cir. (1985).
27. Zamlen v. City of Cleveland, 686 F.Supp. 631, N.D. Ohio (1988).
28. Sackett, P. R., Schmitt, N., Ellingson, J. E., Kabin, M.B. (April, 2001). High-stakes testing in employment, credentialing, and higher education: prospects in a post-affirmative-action world. American Psychologist, 56 (4), pp. 302-318.
29. 1991 Civil Rights Act, supra.
30. Uniform Guidelines (1978), Sections 14B5, 15B8.
31. Principles (2003), p. 19. Standards (1999), Standard 1.18. See also Boston Chapter NAACP, Inc.; Brunet; Clady; Zamlen, supra.
32. Hunter, J. E., & Schmidt, F. L. (1990). Methods of meta-analysis: correcting error and bias in research findings. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
33. Uniform Guidelines (1978), Sections 14B5, 15B8. Principles (2003), p. 19. It is widely accepted in litigation settings that the .05 threshold applies where adverse impact or validity is evaluated.
34. Uniform Guidelines (1978), Section 15B8. Principles (2003), p. 19.
35. Standards (1999), Standard 1.21. U.S. v. State of Delaware (WL 609331, D.Del., 2004); Dickerson, supra, footnote 36;
36. Bernard v. Gulf Oil Corporation, 841 F.2d 547, C.A.5 (Tex.), 1988.
37. Hunter, J. E., & Schmidt, F. L. (2004). Methods of meta-analysis: correcting error and bias in research findings (2nd ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage (p. 230).
38. Estimate of criterion reliabilities range across various studies, with some reporting values of .52 (for overall performance) (Viswesvaran, C., Ones, D. S., & Schmidt, F. L. [1996]. Comparative analysis of the reliability of job performance ratings. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81[5], 557-574)
39. and others adopting values as high as .80 (Hartigan, J. A., & Wigdor, A. K. [1989]. Fairness in employment testing: Validity generalization, minority issues, and the General Aptitude Test Battery. Washington, DC: National Academy Press [page 5]). Therefore, the estimates used in this example should be viewed as conservatively high, which underestimate the operational validity in this example.
40. Uniform Guidelines (1978), Sections 14B6, 15B3, 15B5. Principles, pp. 15-16.
41. Standards, pp. 11-12. Lanning v. SEPTA, 181 F.3d 478 (3rd Circuit 1999); Dickerson, supra.
42. Uniform Guidelines (1978), Sections 14B6, 15B3, 15B5, 15B10. Principles (2003), pp. 46-47.
43. Standards (1999), pp. 152-157.
44. Uniform Guidelines (1978), Sections 14B2-3, 15B5-6.
45. Principles (2003), pp. 16-17.
46. Uniform Guidelines (1978), Sections 14B8, 15B8.
47. Principles (2003), pp. 31-33.
48. See the Uniform Guidelines, Section 7B and 15E1, the Joint Standards (1999), p. 15 and Standard 1.20 and 1.21
49. and the SIOP Principles (2003), pp. 9-10, 28-30.
50. See the Uniform Guidelines, Section 7B and 15E1, Questions & Answers #43
51. the Joint Standards (1999), p. 15 and Standard 1.20 and 1.21
52. and the SIOP Principles (2003), pp. 9-10, 28-30.
53. Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. (1977). Development of a general solution to the problem of validity generalization. Journal of Applied Psychology, 62, 529-540 (see p. 530).
54. 1991 Civil Rights Act, Section 2000e-2[k][1][A][ii].