Ethnicity effects in police officer selection: Applicant, assessor, and selection-method factors

The research reported in the present dissertation has highlighted several issues. One important issue is language as Dutch language-proficiency of applicants explained a substantial part of the score differences between the ethnic majority group and ethnic minority groups. Interestingly, assessor-applicant (dis)similarity did not differentially affect evaluations of ethnically diverse applicants. This finding alleviates concerns that discrimination of ethnic minority groups due to (dis)similarity may occur during personnel selection. However, a difference was found in the decision-making process of ethnic majority assessors judging ethnic minority applicants compared to ethnic majority applicants. This finding indicates that assessors are, in some way, affected by the ethnicity of applicants. Gaining experience in assessing ethnic minority applicants, exchanging knowledge about assessment in a multi-cultural setting among assessors, or perhaps further stand! ardizing the selection process should diminish differential effects. Furthermore, selection measures, both cognitive and non-cognitive, appear to differentially predict training performance of ethnic majority and minority trainees. A possible explanation of this differential effect may lay in the subjective evaluations of supervisors during training. Finally, scores on a newly developed situational judgment test (SJT) turned out to show substantially smaller ethnic group differences than generally are found on the cognitive ability test. These findings yield practical guidelines for personnel selection in a multi-cultural setting, such as further standardization of the decision-making process to hire or reject applicants and diminishing the influence of language skills of applicants by means of SJTs

The work–study interface: similarities and differences between ethnic minority and ethnic majority students

Given the poorer academic outcomes of non-Western ethnic minority students compared to ethnic majority students, we investigated whether differences exist in work–study interface between ethnic groups. We tested a work–study interface model, in which the work-related factors work–study congruence, job control, job demands, work hours, job involvement and job support were antecedents to work–study facilitation (WSF) and work–study conflict (WSC). WSC and WSF, in turn, were expected to predict students’ study effort and subsequently students’ grades. This model fitted well for the full sample and both non-Western ethnic minority students (N = 167) and ethnic majority students (N = 666) separately at a large Dutch university. Results showed that work–study congruence, job control, job involvement and job support led to WSF, which in turn led to more study effort and higher grades. Job control decreased WSC and both job demands and the number of work hours increased WSC. WSC was negatively associated with study effort which resulted in lower grades. These structural relationships, as depicted in the conceptual model of work–study interface, were similar for both the group of non-Western ethnic minority students and the group of ethnic majority students. However, ethnic minority students worked more hours per week than ethnic majority students, which partly explained—via WSC and study effort—the lower academic outcomes for this group

Criterion-related validity op Dutch police-selection measures and differences between ethnic groups.

This study investigated the criterion-related validity of cognitive ability as well as non-cognitive ability measures and differences between ethnic majority (N = 2,365) and minority applicants (N = 682) in Dutch police officer selection. Findings confirmed the relatively low predictive validity of cognitive ability generally found for police jobs. Previous research reported no differential prediction. The present study, however, found small but systematic evidence for differences in validity for the ethnic majority and minority group of both cognitive and non-cognitive measures. For the minority group, training performance appeared to be mainly predicted by the cognitive ability test. For the majority group, cognitive ability showed very little predictive power. Non-cognitive ability variables appeared to be somewhat more predictive in this group