PreVisor is pleased to announce the receipt of the Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology (SIOP) highly coveted 2010 M. Scott Myers Award for Applied Research in the Workplace. The award goes to a joint project team comprised of Walter C. Borman, Janis S. Houston, Tracy M. Kantrowitz, Richard A. McLellan, and Robert J. Schneider, in recognition of their work developing and validating computer adaptive personality assessments.
The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), a division of the American Psychological Association, presents the Myers Award annually to recognize an outstanding example of industrial and organizational psychology in the workplace. The criteria for the award include:
- Has a sound technical/scientific basis.
- Advances the objectives of clients/users.
- Promotes full use of human potential.
- Complies with applicable psychological, legal, and ethical standards.
- Improves the acceptance of I-O psychology in the workplace.
- Shows innovation and excellence.
Noel Sitzmann, CEO of PreVisor, commented, “Our research team’s dedication to applying best practices and innovation to assessment has allowed PreVisor and our clients to realize the advantages of the information age, setting a new standard for theory, research, and practice in the area of personality assessment. Congratulations to all for their ongoing dedication to the field of industrial-organizational psychology. This award punctuates a year of industry innovation and recognition for PreVisor, following receipt of Product of the Year awards from both HRE and Customer Interaction Solutions.”
In addition to the core team, more than 50 scientists from PreVisor, PDRI (a PreVisor company), and Navy Personnel Research, Studies, and Technology (NPRST) contributed over seven years to the research related to the computer adaptive testing (CAT) approach to the measurement of personality traits. This research formed the basis of personality tests for use in the military and private sector, called Navy Computer Adaptive Personality Scales (NCAPS) and PreVisor Global Personality Inventory Adaptive Scales (GPI-Adaptive), respectively.
NCAPS and GPI-Adaptive have improved the way both military and private organizations select and classify employees. Research began with the military’s desire to find a new selection tool to use with the long established Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) to help determine long-term performance. Recognition that individuals’ preferences, interests, and personal characteristics are useful for identifying who will be best suited for future military missions led to the development of NCAPS. Following the successful validation and implementation of NCAPS, the next extension of CAT-based personality instruments led to GPI-Adaptive for use in the private sector. Today PDRI provides continued research on NCAPS with the U.S. Navy.
CAT-based personality measurement offers many benefits and opportunities, including increased efficiency, validity that rivals traditional personality measurement tools, and increased test security particularly for use in unproctored testing environments. It can also help reduce faking or impression management by test takers, a long-standing challenge associated with personality measurement that has received much attention and debate in recent years. Developed by PreVisor and NPRST and implemented by more than thirty organizations, NCAPS and GPI-Adaptive facilitate personnel decisions and allow organizations to make better selection and classification decisions to help drive bottom-line results.
SIOP is a large, international organization of researchers and practitioners in a variety of work-related fields such as human resource development, personnel and organizational assessment, and workplace design and evaluation.
The award will be presented at the 25th annual conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology April 8-10 at the Hilton, Atlanta, Georgia.