6 Chapter essay
Student: ___Parlee Barrow A10289217_______________________________________________________ You are considering using a standardized cognitive ability test in your selection of employees for the job of production supervisor at a small parts manufacturing plant in Ohio. For a number of reasons, it is not possible for you to conduct your own original validation study. However, numerous validation studies have been conducted on the test in other settings, and their findings have consistently yielded a validity coefficient of approximately .40. Describe the steps that you would go through to establish the generalizability of those previous findings to your use of the test in the Ohio plant.
Generalizability is defined as the degree to which the validity of a selection method established in one context to other contexts. There are three primary "contexts" over which we might like to generalize: (1) different situation, (2) different samples of people, and (3) different time periods. Just as reliability is necessary, but not sufficient for validity validity, is necessary, but not sufficient for generalizability. In many ways, generalizability amounts to nothing more than making predictions based on the recurring experience. If something occurs frequently, we expect that it will continue to so in the future. Once researchers have collected sufficient data to support a hypothesis, a premise regarding the behavior of that data can be formulated, making it generalizable to similar circumstances. Generalizability is a three step process. First, the company provides evidence from previous criterion-related validity studies conducted in other situations that show that a specific test is a valid predictor for a specific job. Secondly, the company provides evidence from job analysis to document that the job it is trying to fill is similar in all major respects to the job validated elsewhere. Finally, if the company can show that it uses a test that is the same as or similar to that used in the validated setting, then one can "generalize" the validity from the first context to the new context.