LEARNING AND THE PREDICTION OF PERFORMANCE - DEVELOPMENT OF TRAINABILITY TESTING IN THE UNITED-KINGDOM

Distinguishes between the work-sample approach to personnel selection and a trainability-testing approach. Trainability tests are characterized by the inclusion of a structured and controlled period of learning and are used to select personnel for training rather than to choose people who are already competent. Work conducted on trainability tests over the past decade shows that such tests can be successfully used for semiskilled manual tasks, including areas in which existing written, psychometric tests are poor at predicting trainability. Illustrative examples of parts of tests are provided, and design and validation procedures are discussed. This approach to selection is linked with theoretical ideas advocating point-to-point correspondence between predictor and criterion, in which the relevant aspects of training content, method, and environment are incorporated into the test to ensure correspondence between the training criterion and the selection test. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1979 American Psychological Association.