ET14 Assessment, Snake Oil and other stories with Alan Redman

We are very grateful to Alan Redman, Chartered Occupational Psychologist and Director Criterion Partnership, for taking the time to share his perspective on workplace assessment, as part of our Beyond Measure initiative.  Alan is a highly experienced developer of workplace assessment and over the last 15-20 years, has witnessed the impact that technology has had on the way assessment is designed and implemented. He is also an independent reviewer of assessment on behalf of the British Psychological Society so is extremely well-placed to share his perspective on this topic. Given the explosion in technology, he often finds himself helping organisations make tricky choices about assessments, differentiating those which are underpinned by science and those which look slick, but have little depth or utility. Richard and Alan talk about the advantages of technology in terms of making it easier to standardise an assessment process, easier to administrate for organisations and easier for candidates to take an assessment. However, there are concerns that sometimes, what gets lost along the way is the science and evidence underpinning the assessment. Alan shares his practical advice and tips for spotting the symptoms of 'snake oil assessment' (referencing the work of Rob Briner at the Centre for Evidence-based Management). Beware of marketing speak, gurus, over-simplistic solutions and the 'next big thing'!  Useful reference for an evidence-based enquiry process: https://www.cebma.org   So what does it mean to make an evidence-based approach to using assessment? Given the changes in the market, Alan believes it's time to move our critical judgement on from the traditional quality markers  - for example 'validity' has long been seen as a property of  a test, but the lens we need to view it as a property of the way the test is used. Important to note that it's not enough to see technical data in a test publisher's technical manual, you need to understand whether it works in your organisation.  We particularly liked Alan's cautionary comment: 'What gets lost in technology is the science and the evidence.' Other useful links: British Psychological Society - https://www.bps.org.uk British Psychological Society Psychological Testing Centre - https://ptc.bps.org.uk Psychometrics Forum - http://www.psychometricsforum.org