Criteria: Standards for
Decision Making
The Criterion Problem
Evaluation standards
Evaluation of teachers’ performance
Yardstickof effectiveness
Workers or organization?
Personnel Psychology
Determining the criteria
Making decisions based on the criteria in many
facets of the work environment
Criteria
Types of Criteria:
Conceptual Criteria (Ultimate Criteria) – abstract
idea or construct
cannot be measured
Ex: knowledgeable of subject, conscientious, hardworking, etc.
Actual Criteria – Measurable factors that substitute for
conceptual criteria
Select actual criterion that comes closest to conceptual criterion
Ex: Knowledge of subject – test scores
Ex: Conscientious – all assignments turned in on time
Hard criteria – units produced, # of errors, absences, etc.
Soft criteria – supervisory ratings, self assessment
Criterion Contamination
Bias – extent to which actual criterion
consistently measures something other
than the conceptual criterion
Error – extent to which actual criterion is
not related to anything known (random
variations)
Criterion Development
When do you need the data and for what decisions?
Proximal Criteria – for short term decisions
Ex: Training performance
Distal Criteria – for long term decisions
Ex: Job performance
Criteria Developed
Deductively – theory to data
Inductively – data to theory
Construct validation – process of establishing
criteria
Five Steps to Criterion
Development
1. Job or Needs Analysis
2. Develop measures of actual behavior relative to
expected behavior
3. Identify criterion dimensions underlying
measures (factor analysis)
4. Develop reliable measures to overall factors –
various types of reliability
5. Determine predictive validity (correlate predictor
with criterion)
Purpose of Criterion
Development
Theoretical – Helps us understand a concept
better.
What are the characteristics of good performance?
Practically – Use information to make
personnel decisions.
Selecting job applicants
Determining what and who needs to be trained
Determining salaries
Job Analysis
Job Analysis - Tool for identifying job-related criteria.
Systematic breakdown & description of a job in terms of:
What is accomplished
How it is accomplished
Knowledge, Skills, Abilities & Others (KSAOs) required
to perform job
Task statements
• Tasks, position, job, job family
Job orientated and worker orientated
Task Statements
What?
To whom or what?
How?
For what purpose?
Example: College Professor:
Presents information to college students by way
of oral presentation to teach course subject
matter.
Other ways to deliver information (an additional
task)?
Job Analysis
Sources of Information
Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
Job Incumbents – someone currently
performing job
Supervisors to Job Incumbents –
individuals who used to perform job
Trained Job Analysts – understands
differences among various jobs
Job Oriented Job Analyses
Job Oriented
Task Analysis –
Dissection of human work into “tasks”
Descriptions of the performance of the tasks
Forms of task statements – Table 3.2, p. 62
Often used in Human Factors work
Cognitive task analysis focuses on types of
decisions made on the job
May be used to determine function allocation
(what done by machine or by human)
Job Evaluation
Job Evaluation – Method for determining
the value and worth of a job within the
organization
Makes use of Job Analysis information
What is job position worth (not person)?
Pay too little – can’t recruit best applicants
Pay too much – org. puts self in financial
difficulty
Fair Wages
Fair wages determined by:
External Equity – what are other orgs
paying?
Wage surveys
Internal Equity – people at similar jobs
within org receive similar pay (fairness)
Equity issues
Gender, regionally concerns
Equal Pay Act
Equal Pay Act (1963) – requires that men & women
performing the same job receive equal pay (other
aspects being equal).
Covers private, state, and local federal employees;
NO minimum number of employees
- problem: rarely are 2 jobs equal
Comparable Worth – Jobs that are equivalent or
comparable should receive same pay
Gender and wages: AAUP survey, Martocchio (1991)
– females 75 cent to males dollar
Job evaluation used to determine comparability of
jobs.
Legal: Lemons v. City of Denver (1980), Christensen
v. Sate of Iowa (1977), AFSCME v. State of
Washington (1983)
How are criteria determined?
Criteria must be:
Appropriate – relevant to the job
Stable – consistent over time and situation
Practical – should be possible to measure
Types of Criteria
Objective (hard)– taken from personnel records
Productivity – error analysis, output
Sales – type of product/service issue
Turnover – termination, layoff, downsizing
Absenteeism – many factors affect
Accidents, thefts, others
Subjective (soft) – judgments about worker
performance
Rating scales, assessed by supervisors, peers, subordinates
Criterion bias study – Bass & Turner (1973)
Dynamic – job performance not expected to be
stable over time
Performance expected to increase, accidents decrease
