Content area
Full Text
This study uses meta-analysis of an extensive predictive validity database to explore the boundary conditions for the validity of the structured interview as presented by McDaniel, Whetzel, Schmidt, and Maurer (1994). The interview examined here differs from traditional structured interviews in being empirically constructed, administered by telephone, and scored later based on a taped transcript. Despite these and other differences, this nontraditional employment interview was found to have essentially the same level of criterion-related validity for supervisory ratings of job performance reported by McDaniel for other structured employment interviews. These findings suggest that a variety of different approaches to the construction, administration, and scoring of structured employment interviews may lead to comparable levels of validity. We hypothesize that this result obtains because different types of structured interviews all measure to varying degrees constructs with known generalizable validity (e.g., conscientiousness and general mental ability). The interview examined here was also found to be a valid predictor of production records, sales volume, absenteeism, and job tenure.
The employment interview is second only to the application blank in frequency of use as a selection procedure (American Society for Personnel Administration, 1983; Ulrich and Trumbo, 1965). Recent research indicates that employment interviews, used properly, have higher validity for predicting job performance than previously believed and that validity is generalizable (McDaniel, Whetzel, Schmidt, & Maurer, 1994; see also Huffcutt & Arthur, 1994). However, in any area of research that is not guided by strong and well developed theory, it is important to investigate the boundaries of known empirical generalizations. In the criterion related validity area, this requirement is particularly important for selection procedures such as the interview, evaluations of education and experience, biographical data measures, and assessment centers; that is, for procedures which have not been shown to measure a particular or well defined construct, making it difficult or impossible to base validity extensions on theory and developed nomological networks of correlations among constructs in the cumulative research literature (Schmidt & Rothstein, 1994).
The employment interview is a measurement procedure, as are paper and pencil tests of ability or aptitude. However, meta-analyses of the validity of paper and pencil tests are conducted separately for each ability construct measured by such tests, in order to examine the validity associated with...