A Triadic Approach to the Construct Validity of the Assessment Center: The Effect of Categorizing Dimensions into a Feeling, Thinking, and Power Taxonomy

This study examined the influence on construct validity of implementing the triad Feeling, Thinking, and Power as a taxonomy for behavioral dimensions in assessment center (AC) exercises. A sample of 1567 job applicants participated in an AC specifically developed according to this taxonomy. Each exercise tapped three dimensions, one dimension from each cluster of the taxonomy. Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the multitrait-multimethod matrix showed evidence for construct validity. Thus, the ratings matched the a priori triadic grouping to a good extent. Practical implications are discussed

Impact of common rater variance on construct validity of assessment center dimension judgements

In an assessment center (AC), assessors generally rate an applicant's performance on multiple dimensions in just 1 exercise. This rating procedure introduces common rater variance within exercises but not between exercises. This article hypothesizes that this phenomenon is partly responsible for the consistently reported result that the AC lacks construct validity. Therefore, in this article, the rater effect is standardized on discriminant and convergent validity via a multitrait-multimethod design in which each matrix cell is based on ratings of different assessors. Two independent studies (N = 200, N = 52) showed that, within exercises, correlations decrease when common rater variance is excluded both across exercises (by having assessors rate only 1 exercise) and within exercises (by having assessors rate only 1 dimension per exercise). Implications are discussed in the context of the recent discussion around the appropriateness of the within-exercise versus the within-dimension evaluation method

Light levitated geostationary cylindrical orbits are feasible

This paper discusses a new family of non-Keplerian orbits for solar sail spacecraft displaced above or below the Earth's equatorial plane. The work aims to prove the assertion in the literature that displaced geostationary orbits exist, possibly to increase the number of available slots for geostationary communications satellites. The existence of displaced non-Keplerian periodic orbits is ¯rst shown analytically by linearization of the solar sail dynamics around a geostationary point. The full displaced periodic solution of the non-linear equations of motion is then obtained using a Hermite-Simpson collocation method with inequality path constraints. The initial guess to the collocation method is given by the linearized solution and the inequality path constraints are enforced as a box around the linearized solution. The linear and nonlinear displaced periodic orbits are also obtained for the worst-case Sun-sail orientation at the solstices. Near-term and high-performance sails can be displaced between 10 km and 25 km above the Earth's equatorial plane during the summer solstice, while a perforated sail can be displaced above the usual station-keeping box (75 £ 75 km) of nominal geostationary satellites. Light-levitated orbit applications to Space Solar Power are also considered

A triadic approach to assessment centre’s construct validity; The effect of categorising dimensions into a feeling, thinking, power taxonomy

This study examined the influence on construct validity of implementing the triad Feeling, Thinking and Power as a taxonomy for behavioural dimensions in assessment centre (AC) exercises. A sample of 1.567 job applicants participated in an AC specifically developed according to this taxonomy. Each exercise tapped three dimensions, one dimension from each cluster of the taxonomy. Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the multitrait-multimethod matrix showed evidence for construct validity. Thus the ratings matched the a priori triadic grouping to a good extent. Practical implications are discussed

The Transparent Assessment Centre: The Effects of Revealing Dimensions to Candidates

What are the effects of revealing dimensions to candidates in an assessment centre? This question is addressed in two independent studies, using individual exercises. Results in Study 1 showed no difference in construct-related validity between a transparent (N =99) and a non-transparent group of university students (N =50),contrary to previous findings by Kleinmann, Kuptsch, and Köller (1996) and Kleinmann (1997), who used group exercises. Also, mean ratings did not alter, the exception being the dimension 'Sensitivity', which increased slightly after the transparency treatment. Conversely, results in Study 2, which contained a sample of actual job applicants, showed a significant improvement in construct-related validity for the transparent group (N =297) compared with the non-transparent group (N =393). Again, mean ratings did not differ between these two groups. Implications of these findings for practice and suggestions for future research are discussed in this paper