Human Resource Selection 9e
Chapter 13: Simulation Tests
TRUE/FALSE

	1.	Simulation (performance) tests provide only indirect evidence of the applicant's ability and skill to work on the job.

ANS:	F	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	2.	Simulation tests commonly assume that the applicants already have the knowledge, ability, and skill to complete the job behavior required in the test.

ANS:	T	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	3.	Performance tests have only been found to successfully predict job performance for clerical and skilled manual labor positions.

ANS:	F	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	4.	Asking many questions rapidly and not allowing much time for the applicant's response in a selection interview is an effective performance test for assessing the stress associated with high work demands.

ANS:	F	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	5.	The most appropriate tasks to consider for a performance test are those that depend on specialized knowledge, abilities, or skills to use company products, personnel, materials, customers, etc, since these tasks distinguish the company's jobs from other organizations' jobs.

ANS:	F	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	6.	Ordinarily, simulation tests are much more expensive than other selection devices if many applicants are involved.

ANS:	T	PTS:	1	REF:	535	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	7.	Signs are selection tests that gather information about behaviors that are consistent with the job behavior being predicted.

ANS:	F	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	8.	Trainability tests are useful for jobs requiring general knowledge or skill that applicants can be expected to possess.

ANS:	F	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	9.	Minicourse trainability tests use a training setting to create a performance test that predicts future job performance.

ANS:	F	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	10.	From a cost standpoint, when developing a simulation test it is preferable to select tasks that require a long time to perform rather than tasks that require a short time to perform.

ANS:	F	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	11.	Tasks that a large majority of applicants can do are useful in discriminating among good and poor applicants.

ANS:	F	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	12.	Tasks that have standardized operations or products or have easily defined verbal or interactive components are more appropriate in performance tests than tasks not so characterized.

ANS:	T	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	13.	In general, tasks chosen to be in a performance test are those that have a strong bearing on job performance.

ANS:	T	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	14.	All else being equal, it is preferable to have the applicant's performance on one part of the test be closely tied to a previous part of the test.

ANS:	F	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	15.	In general, a process is scored in a simulation test when there are a small number of ways to do the job and these ways invariably lead to an acceptable product..

ANS:	T	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	16.	When scoring motor performance tests, a number of separate standards can be scored for both process and product categories.

ANS:	T	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	17.	Studies that examine the results of using simulation tests in selection have been universally positive and have identified several benefits.

ANS:	T	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	18.	Simulation tests should never serve as a realistic job preview.

ANS:	F	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	19.	Research shows that the adverse impact of the performance tests was less than that of the written tests.

ANS:	T	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	20.	The Management Progress Study of AT&T marked the beginning of the use of assessment centers for industrial organizations.

ANS:	T	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	21.	Assessment centers are usually administered to individuals one at a time rather than to groups of individuals.

ANS:	F	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	22.	The development of an Assessment Center starts with a job analysis to identify clusters of job activities that are the important parts of the job of interest.

ANS:	T	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	23.	Personality tests, both paper-and-pencil and projective, are commonly being included in recent assessment centers.

ANS:	F	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	24.	The interview is employed quite often in assessment centers.

ANS:	T	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	25.	Usually, there are twice as many assessors in an assessment center as there are participants.

ANS:	F	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	26.	The major duty of an assessor in an Assessment Center is to record the behavior of a participant in an exercise and use the data to rate the participant on each behavioral dimension appropriate for the exercise.

ANS:	T	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	27.	In an assessment center, each exercise should not measure more than one dimension.

ANS:	F	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	28.	Assessors (in an assessment center) are usually outside consultants hired for their expertise and objectivity.

ANS:	F	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	29.	In general, adverse impact has not been a problem associated with assessment centers.

ANS:	T	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	30.	One problem with assessment centers is that they have rarely received favorable support by the courts and the EEOC in alleged discrimination cases.

ANS:	F	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	31.	There is evidence to support the conclusion that it is possible to use data currently available in organizations to yield comparable selection data that are valid at a lower cost than assessment centers.

ANS:	T	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	32.	In assessment centers, correlations among dimension ratings are usually quite high.

ANS:	F	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	33.	In assessment centers, correlations among dimensions that are measured with the same exercise are very low.

ANS:	F	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	34.	Partially because of the cost and lack of convergent and discriminant validity of Assessment Centers, selection specialists have turned their attention to other types of simulation devices.

ANS:	T	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	35.	Assessment Centers are a more practical option for small businesses than large ones.

ANS:	F	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

MULTIPLE CHOICE

	1.	Which of the following is a limitation in the use of simulation tests?
a.	Much care must be taken in the construction of work sample tests to ensure their representativeness of job activity. 	
b.	Inferences of the applicant's future job performance must be made from only verbal information.	
c.	The carryover from verbal description to job performance needed in performance tests is not always complete.	
d.	The data are subject to willing distortion or faking by the applicant.	

ANS:	A	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	2.	Which of the following is a true distinction between simulation tests and other selection devices?
a.	Simulation tests provide indirect evidence of an applicant's ability and skill to work on the job, while other selection devices provide direct evidence.	
b.	The focus is more on the test representing important job activities than on linking the test to specific WRCs. 	
c.	Simulation tests do not require judgments by raters or interpretations of scores, while other selection devices do require judgment and interpretation.	
d.	Simulation tests predict future job performance while other selection devices assess current WRCs.	

ANS:	B	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	3.	"Signs" and "samples" are categories of selection tests that both rely upon which of the following "principles" of human behavior?
a.	behavioral consistency 	c.	trait consistency	
b.	behavioral variability	d.	trait variability	

ANS:	A	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	4.	Operating a machine is an example of a(n) ____________ test.
a.	motor	c.	easy 	
b.	verbal`	d.	sign	

ANS:	A	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	5.	Work sample tests have been classified as falling into two categories. What are those two categories?
a.	signs, samples	c.	verbal, motor 	
b.	physical, mental	d.	mechanical, problem-centered	

ANS:	C	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	6.	The following are steps in the development of simulation tests. What is the correct order of steps to produce a performance test?

i.	training of judges	
ii.	perform job analysis	
iii.	develop scoring procedures	
iv.	identification of tasks to be tested	
v.	develop testing procedures	

a.	ii, iv, v, i, iii	b.	ii, iv, v, iii, i	c.	ii, iv, i, iii, v	d.	ii, v, i, iii, iv	

ANS:	B	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	7.	Which of the following is TRUE about the choice of standards for scoring a performance test?
a.	Quality is more important when correctness of the task effort is secondary to time or cost to complete the task.	
b.	Quantity is most importantly scored for those performance tests in which amount produced within a given period of time is not within the control of the worker.	
c.	Learning time is a logical standard for tasks which are characterized by having a variety of novel demands placed on the job incumbent. 	
d.	Safety is an important dimension to consider for all tasks.	

ANS:	C	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	8.	The development of an assessment center starts with a job analysis to identify clusters of job activities that are important parts of the job of interest. These job clusters are referred to as:
a.	categories	b.	profiles	c.	patterns	d.	dimensions 	

ANS:	D	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	9.	Which of the following is a behavioral dimension frequently measured in assessment centers?
a.	attention to detail	c.	decisiveness	
b.	cooperation	d.	reliability	

ANS:	C	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	10.	What are the two most often-used simulation tests in assessment centers?
a.	case analysis; personal history data	c.	leaderless group discussion; in-basket	
b.	peer assessment; measures of leadership ability	d.	mental ability tests; projective tests	

ANS:	C	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	11.	Which of the following is true about the relationship between dimensions and exercises in an assessment center?
a.	Each dimension is measured by one exercise.	
b.	Each dimension must be measured by more than one exercise. 	
c.	Each exercise measures only one dimension.	
d.	One exercise is usually adequate to measure all dimensions.	

ANS:	B	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	12.	Participants’ performance in Assessment Centers is composed of:
a.	a General Performance factor and an Exercise factor.	
b.	a General Performance factor and Measurement Error.	
c.	an Exercise factor and Measurement Error.	
d.	Latent Traits and Measurement Error.	

ANS:	A	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	13.	Which of the following behavioral dimensions is NOT frequently measured in Assessment Centers?
a.	Oral communication	
b.	Time management	
c.	Decisiveness 	
d.	Tenacity 	

ANS:	B	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	14.	Which of the following is a criticism of assessment centers?
a.	lack of validity	
b.	adverse impact	
c.	very expensive to develop and maintain 	
d.	lack of acceptance by organizations	

ANS:	C	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	15.	Which of the following are considered a “low-fidelity” simulation?
a.	situational interviews	c.	hypothetical work situation 	
b.	situational judgment tests	d.	blueprint reading test	

ANS:	B	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

	16.	Which of the following is true in terms of about what we know about assessment centers?
a.	They have very mixed results - about half work and half don’t.	
b.	They work (i.e., are valid in predicting both job performance and career movement),	
c.	They don't work (i.e., aren't valid in predicting both job performance and career movement) because the dimensions do not measure empirically distinct characteristics of the participants.	
d.	The cost of using them outweighs the benefits.	

ANS:	B	PTS:	1	NOT:	AACSB Reflective Thinking

ESSAY

	1.	If performance tests are so sensible and efficient, shouldn't they be used in all selection situations? Why or why not?

ANS:	Student response will vary.	PTS:	1

	2.	You are asked to develop a performance test for a mid-level management job that is characterized by multiple, competing, and high job demands. Obviously, stress is associated with this position. What kind of performance test would you create to assess the ability of an applicant to handle this type of stress effectively?

ANS:	Student response will vary. 	PTS:	1

	3.	Summarize the validity evidence for using assessment centers in selection. Do they work as they were intended to work? Why or why not?

ANS:	Student response will vary.	PTS:	1

	4.	When would it be reasonable to include personal computer skill in an assessment center?

ANS:	Student response will vary. 	PTS:	1