Issues in integrating interests, abilities, and personality

What is it about?

Comments on an article by Rob Silzer and Richard Jeanneret (see record 2011-19614-002). Silzer and Jeanneret note the disparity between industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology's defined competencies in individual psychological assessment (IPA) and the general tendencies of the field not to embrace IPA as an area for training. Most training programs in I-O, they assert, do not include formal IPA training, and there is little evidence to suggest that that is not an accurate description. It follows that the apparently sizable number of I-O and other psychologists who conduct IPAs are largely trained on the job, on their own, or by applying skills learned in other programs in which they may have received training such as clinical or counseling psychology. Their paper is largely based on IPAs as a process of assessment rather than as a content-specific one. As such, they apply the traditional I-O psychology research paradigms to consider issues of validity and reliability of IPA as a selection methodology. What they address in considerably less detail are the content issues of what is specifically being assessed and how that information should be combined to make appropriate recommendations about assesses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

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Why is it important?

IPAs (individual psychological assessments) are widely practiced. This article identifies some of the challenges in conducting them in a manner consistent with the scientific literature on three domains (interests, abilities, personality) and some of the criterion concerns in validation research.

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