ISO Standards: Call for Review and Comment

Take Action by May 11: Open Call for SIOP Membership Interest in Review and Comment of ISO Standards on Assessment of People in Work and Organizational Settings
 
The ISO committee on Psychological Assessment has been developing new standards for international testing in two parts. The “Assessment Service Delivery – Procedures and methods to assess people in work and organizational settings – Part 1 (Requirements for Service Providers) and Part 2 (Requirements for the client)” are scheduled to be voted on for ratification this winter. NOTE: Assessment for the ISO standards has been fairly broadly defined to include selection tools, performance management tools, and organizational/employee surveys.

Before that vote occurs, there is a window to provide comments on the draft standards. SIOP is now calling on all interested Members and Associate Members who may have an interest in reviewing and providing commentary on the draft standards to get involved in the process now.
 
SIOP is working toward a deadline of June 15to have reviews and feedback collected on the standards. To get involved, please email Admin1@siop.org by May 11. You will be directed toward documents for review and method of providing commentary through the new SIOP wiki platform.
 
Thank you for your interest.  

Comments

[Ronald Kennedy]

I think some historical perspective might be useful here. Back in the 70's, when I received my M.A. in I-O Psyc., there was little to no discussion that I can recall about "generalizing" assessment centers across a broad spectrum of organizations and job families. There were attempts to validate and "norm" paper-and pencil, objective tests.

The concepts of "Job-Relatedness", "Validation" and "Reliability" were, for the most part, discussed in the context of a specific job in a specific organization in a specific location. In other words, there was little to no generalizability.

Further, the implication was (and is) that the more you generalize your assessment processes and procedures across organizations, jobs or cultures, the LESS job-related and, thus, the LESS predictive and defensible such processes may become.

The other implication is that assessments done in the more rigorous manner "of old" simply are not cost-effective or sellable in the current times when we apparently need to have a "slam-dunk", cheaper way of assessing talent.

Frankly, I am not sure that the trend toward generalization of assessment processes and procedures leads to selection of the best talent for a given position or situation---and isn't that what assessment is ultimately about?

I would be interested in input on the relative validity/reliability of such generalized assessment process vs the more highly specific job-related assessments.

As always, I welcome any questions or comments.