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THE RELATIONSHIP OF PARTICIPANT PERFORMANCE IN THE NEBRASKA ASSESSMENT CENTER TO PARTICIPANT CONCEPTUAL LEVEL/COGNITIVE COMPLEXITY
Abstract
The primary purpose of this study was to determine the relationship of cognitive complexity to a participant's performance scores on each of the 12 skill dimensions of the NASSP Assessment Center. A secondary purpose was to determine if gender and occupational level were related to assessment center performance or cognitive complexity. Data were gathered by the use of the Paragraph Completion Test (a projective measure of complexity). One hundred persons who had been assessed by the assessment center within the period 1980-1985 were contacted; 63 returned instruments were scored by two raters trained in the scoring protocol. Differences in rater scoring were resolved by the raters using a consensus reaching process. Analysis was a 2 x 2 x 2 ANOVA with the independent variables being gender, occupational level, and conceptual level. Results of the study indicated that neither gender, occupational level, nor Conceptual Level were directly related (main effect) to assessment center performance. Conceptual Level interacted with gender and occupational level. Male performance on the skill dimensions of Organizational Ability and Written Communication was unrelated by Conceptual Level (p < .05). However, performance by high Conceptual Level females was significantly better than the performance of low Conceptual Level females on Written Communication (p < .05). High Conceptual Level females scored significantly better than low and high Conceptual Level males for Organizational Ability (p < .05) and high Conceptual Level males for Written Communication (p < .001). The variable of Occupational Level interacted with Conceptual Level for Oral Communication; however, post hoc analysis identified no significant (p < .05) simple effects. A general pattern of high Conceptual Level females outperforming males or low Conceptual Level females was present in 9 of the 12 skill dimensions. This study suggests that assessment centers may select for complex information processing in females but are less likely to select for complex information processing in males.
Subject Area
School administration
Recommended Citation
HOLMAN, DAVID MICHAEL, "THE RELATIONSHIP OF PARTICIPANT PERFORMANCE IN THE NEBRASKA ASSESSMENT CENTER TO PARTICIPANT CONCEPTUAL LEVEL/COGNITIVE COMPLEXITY" (1987). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8715849.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8715849