21. The Polygraph Act of 1988 legalized the use of polygraph tests for employment screening in most organizations.
22. The use of drug tests is controversial primarily because their results have low reliability and validity.
23. Work-sample tests tend to have high reliability, high validity, and high legality.
24. Drug tests tend to have low validity, low legality, and low utility.
25. Reference checks tend to have moderate reliability, moderate validity, and moderate utility.
Multiple Choice Questions
26. Most measurement in personnel selection deals with complex characteristics. Which one of the following is not one of them?
A. Intelligence
B. Dedication
C. Integrity
D. Leadership ability
Most measurement in personnel selection deals with complex characteristics like intelligence, integrity, and leadership ability.
27. Which of the following is not one of the five generic standards that should be met in any selection process?
A. Utility
B. Validity
C. Reliability
D. Flexibility
Five generic standards that should be met in any selection process are: (1) reliability, (2) validity, (3) generalizability, (4) utility, and (5) legality.
28. A perfect positive relationship equals:
A. +1.0.
B. -1.0.
C. .00.
D. 1.1.
The correlation coefficient expresses the strength of the relationship in numerical form. A perfect positive relationship (as one set of numbers goes up, so does the other) equals +1.0.
29. A correlation coefficient of -1.0 indicates a:
A. complete lack of a relationship between two sets of numbers.
B. perfect positive relationship between two sets of numbers.
C. perfect negative relationship between two sets of numbers.
D. partial negative relationship between two sets of numbers.
The correlation coefficient expresses the strength of the relationship in numerical form.
30. When assessing the reliability of a measure, one might be interested in knowing how scores on the measure at one time relate to scores on the same measure at another time. This refers to:
A. correlation coefficient.
B. test-retest reliability.
C. retest validity.
D. test utility.
If the characteristic we are measuring is supposedly stable (like intelligence or integrity) and the time lapse is short, this relationship should be strong. If it were weak, then the measure would be inconsistent—hence unreliable. This is called assessing test-retest reliability.