Recruitment and Selection in the Public and Nonprofi t Sectors 201
Three types of validity are recognized by the Uniform Guidelines on
Employee Selection: content, criterion, and construct.
Content Validity Selection instruments and procedures are considered
to be content valid if they refl ect the KSAOCs considered essential for job
performance. If you want to see if, at the time of hire, an applicant pos-
sesses a skill or knowledge necessary to perform a job, then content validity
is an appropriate validation strategy. The most common example cited is
the typing test. How does an employer know if applicants can type eighty
words per minute? By requiring applicants to demonstrate their skills by
taking a test.
The procedures that need to be followed to develop a content-valid
test are as follows. First, a job analysis must be conducted. The KSAOCs
and responsibilities required for the position must be discovered. Once
they have been identifi ed, they need to be rated for their relevancy, fre-
quency, and importance to the job. It must then be determined whether it
is essential for candidates to possess those KSAOCs at the time of hiring
or whether they can be learned once the person is on the job. Test items
must be written or performance measures must be developed to capture
the KSAOCs that are essential at the time of hiring. Then incumbents
and supervisors who are familiar with the job (subject matter experts, or
SMEs) must evaluate the test items or performance samples to determine
whether the test accurately refl ects the competencies required by the job.
A majority of SMEs must agree that the items are representative of the
types of skills, knowledge, and behaviors required for the job.
Content validity is used often in the public and nonprofit sectors.
Personnel specialists and managers often possess the skills needed to develop
content-valid exams. They can be trained in how to conduct in job analy-
ses and how to work with SMEs to develop selection instruments. Large
applicant or incumbent populations are not required, and content-validation
studies do not necessarily require consultants or an extensive background in
psychometrics. Content - valid exams possess face validity: candidates easily
understand how the exam relates to the position. Studies have shown that
exams with face validity lead to litigation less often than other types of tests.
Criterion Validity Criterion validity measures whether the test scores
(called predictors ) are related to performance on some measure (called a
criterion ), such as supervisory evaluations or success in a training program.
Does the test predict subsequent job performance? The most common
example is the correlation of test scores with supervisory ratings of job
performance.