Fairness in Employment Testing Validity Generalization, Minority Issues, and the General Aptitude Test Battery (1989) / Chapter Skim
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11 In Whose Interest: Potential Effects of the VG-GATB Referral System
11 In Whose Interest: Potential Effects of the VG-GATB Referral System
Pages 209-234
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From page 209... ...
were to be widely adopted in the Job Service. Indeed, the Department of Labor did ask the committee to consider the likely impact of widespread adoption on employers, minority job seekers, people with handicapping conditions, and veterans.
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From page 210... ...
In addition, there was somewhat less attrition among the higher scorers. These results indicate that the clothing manufacturer could have had a slightly more productive work force by hiring on the basis of test scores, assuming there were enough job seekers in the area to allow for selectivity.
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From page 211... ...
Moreover, the respondents cannot be considered representative of Job Service clients since the sample was not scientifically drawn. Within these limitations, however, we can learn a good deal about the practices and attitudes of 500 employers who have experience with their state Employment Service and the VG-GATB procedures.
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From page 212... ...
Over half of the 500 employers in the survey said that they include specific selection criteria in their job order. The two most common requirements listed were job experience and the imposition of a minimum cutoff score on the GATE (each criterion used by about 51 percent of respondents)
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From page 213... ...
On the questionnaire, the within-group score adjustment used in the VG-GATB system to avoid screening out minority job seekers was explained. The questionnaire then asked which of four scoring methods respondents find most advantageous: within-group percentile scores, total-group percentile scores, a combination of the two, or pass/fail.
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From page 214... ...
In general, selecting the group of candidates to refer on the basis of rank-ordered test scores should present the employer with a modestly enriched pool of candidates to choose from. There is theoretical as well as some empirical evidence to support this claim.
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From page 215... ...
We agree that GATB-based referral could have a beneficial impact on job seekers at least on competitive job seekers by reducing the possibility of personal prejudice from referral decisions and by giving the Job Service staff a better picture of the relative abilities of all the registrants currently in the files. Particularly in heavy-volume Job Service offices, the identification of prospective candidates could be less hit or miss.
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From page 216... ...
But the firm has entered an agreement with the Job Service so that access to the job is solely by test score. The worker is being told that his test scores do not qualify him for the work that he performed for many years.
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From page 217... ...
There were no significant differences between minority and majority applicants with regard to the fairness questions, but applicants with advanced degrees (beyond high school) were less favorably disposed toward the GATB than others, which has implications for the USES hope that the VG-GATB Referral System will make the Employment Service a more mainline employment agency and help it shed its past reputation as a provider of last resort.
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From page 218... ...
EFFECTS ON MINORITY JOB SEEKERS The single most important question with regard to the effects of the VG-GATB Referral System on minority job seekers is whether the government-in the near term the Justice Department, ultimately the courts find score adjustments a legally and constitutionally acceptable means of furthering equal employment opportunity goals. Chapter 13, on referral methods and score reporting, presents some scientific reasons in support of such a policy.
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From page 219... ...
This would not be the case if VG-GATB referral were not accompanied by score adjustments of the magnitude of the within-group percentile scores. Without such adjustments, referral on the basis of rank-ordered test scores would have very severe adverse impact on black and Hispanic applicants.
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From page 220... ...
By exclusive use of an instrument that does not permit such people to show their strengths, the Employment Service system would serve neither employers nor workers needs as well as it might. EFFECTS ON PEOPLE WITH HANDICAPS The populations most at risk of misassessment in a test-based referral system include people with handicapping conditions.
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From page 221... ...
In the first category is the following kind of problem: the Employment Service of a northern state recently developed a videotape of a sign language administration of the GATE for use with deaf applicants. Because of its history of aptitude test research for the deaf, the USES Southern Test Development Field Center in North Carolina was asked to review the videotape.
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From page 222... ...
Neither the test scores nor high school grades predicted college performance as well as they did for the nonhandicapped group. Both scores and predictions are better for people with motor handicaps and visual impairment.
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From page 223... ...
Although subsequent Department of Labor memoranda recommended the use of sign language interpreters for deaf applicants, particularly in a regional office where there were many deaf applicants, there was no clear advantage for the signed over the modified written instructions. The clear disparity between the deaf and the nondeaf on verbal and cognitive factors (G.
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From page 224... ...
Since state rehabilitation agencies have a wealth of expertise in vocational counseling for people with handicaps, it could well make sense to coordinate their work more closely with that of the Employment Service. One possible option would be to detail state rehabilitation agency counselors to Job Service offices that serve a sizable handicapped clientele.
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From page 225... ...
By joint resolution, Congress mandated in March 1865 that persons who had been honorably discharged due to injury or illness incurred in the line of duty should be preferred for appointment to civil jobs, provided that they "possess the business capacity necessary for the proper discharge of the duties of such offices." The hiring preference accorded to disabled veterans was reaffirmed in the act creating the modern civil service in 1883, although the eligibility requirements were sufficiently restrictive in these early years that only a few hundred cases came before the Civil Service Commission annually.
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From page 226... ...
With the support of the American Legion, the Civil Service Commission in 1923 recommended to the president that a system of adding points be instituted 5 points for veterans and 10 points for disabled veteransin place of absolute priority above a minimum cutoff score. It would, the commission argued, provide a substantial benefit without being seriously detrimental to efficiency.
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From page 227... ...
The selecting officer can pass over a veteran in favor of competing nonveterans only with the approval of the Civil Service Commission. The Public Employment Service and Veterans' Preference Since its own creation by the Wagner-Peyser Act of 1933, the Public Employment Service has had major responsibility for promoting veterans' employment.
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From page 228... ...
In the narrowest interpretation, it would mean that between two applicants with exactly the same test scores, the veteran would be placed ahead of the nonveteran on the referral roster. In the most generous decision rule, all veterans who met the employer-imposed cutoff score (if such there be)
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From page 229... ...
Another three states apply only the tie-breaker rule. It is noteworthy that the absolute-priority rule adopted by 16 states is far more generous than the preference accorded veterans in traditional federal civil service hiring (procedures for entry-level hiring are currently undergoing change)
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From page 230... ...
However, based on admittedly limited data comparing scores in all five job families for two groups defined by veteran status, it appears that veterans and nonveterans have roughly the same mean percentile scores. For example, the 1987-1988 figures for one local office in Michigan show: Average Percentile Score Job Family Veterans (N= 1,100)
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From page 231... ...
4. The VG-GATB Referral System, were it to be the only mode of referral offered through the Employment Service system, would consign the lowest-scoring applicants to receiving little or no assistance in finding work when, in fact, many such applicants could perform satisfactorily on the job.
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From page 232... ...
2. Recent research carried out by the Educational Testing Service to investigate these questions in terms of its major cognitive test batteries, particularly the Scholastic Aptitude Test Battery, demonstrates the extreme difficulty of gathering sufficient data to answer these questions empirically.
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From page 233... ...
Consideration should be given to placing state rehabilitation counselors in local Employment Service offices that service a sizable handicapped population.
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From page 234... ...
4. Although two of the methods of referral priority, variants of the decile method, confer quite a bit of advantage on veterans, adding points to percentile scores has the anomalous effect of helping veterans with high scores substantially more than veterans with moderate test scores.
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