Assessment Validity Information
The Predictive Index has an extensive scientific background going back over 60 years. PI has conducted over 400 client validation studies that support the PI Behavioral Assessment’s ability to predict job performance across jobs, industries, and countries. They adhere to the standards set forth in The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. In addition, the PI Behavioral Assessment achieved certification with the European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations (EFPA) in 2018, which involved the analysis and presentation of data regarding the assessment’s reliability, validity, and fairness.
What Exactly Is Validity?
Validity refers to evidence supporting interpretations and use cases for an assessment. The PI Science Team engages in continuous improvement for their validation. Throughout the body of their validity research, they have found that the PI Behavioral Assessment is linked to multiple work outcomes, which has helped them to establish criterion-related validity. Further, they have researched how the BA is linked to theoretically related (and unrelated) dimensions, allowing them to establish convergent (and discriminant) validity.
Third-Party Reviews
PI’s assessments have undergone formal peer reviews to reviews where researchers check the properties of the instrument to see if it can be used in their own studies. Time and again, the PI Behavioral Assessment and Cognitive Assessment have stood up to scrutiny, which is why the assessments have endured as useful, powerful workplace tools.
The most comprehensive third-party review of the PI Behavioral Assessment was conducted from 2017 to 2018 through the certification company DNV-GL. In that review, Form V of the PI Behavioral Assessment was reviewed by Dag Øyvind Engen Nilsen and Sara Henrysson Eidvall, psychologists and independent DNV-GL auditors who evaluated the assessment against the guidelines published by the European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations (EFPA, 2013). These two auditors reviewed the entire assessment system, including validity, reliability, fairness, development, norms, reporting, supporting documentation and training, and even pricing and distribution. In addition to the general assessment system, the auditors reviewed and certified the PI Behavioral Assessment system for use in Sweden and Norway, meaning that technical documentation, psychometric analyses, fairness studies, and translation information were also analyzed for samples from those regions. The PI Behavioral Assessment passed this review and was certified under the EFPA model in September 2018. PI provides DNV-GL with annual reports on the PI Behavioral Assessment and recertifies the assessment with full reviews every three years.
In 2020, Drs. Nilsen and Eidvall conducted a review of the PI Cognitive Assessment on behalf of DNV-GL and the assessment achieved certification for use on the overall level and for Sweden. This exhaustive review looked at technical documentation, additional psychometric analyses, fairness studies, and translation information. The PI Cognitive Assessment passed this review and was certified under the EFPA model in June 2020. PI will provide DNV-GL with annual reports on the PI Cognitive Assessment and will undergo additional reviews every three years.
Norming
The PI Cognitive Assessment is criterion-referenced rather than norm-referenced. In the simplest possible terms, this means that CA scores are based upon one’s own achievement on the assessment (i.e., the number of questions answered correctly) as opposed to the relationship of one’s scores as compared with those of another participant or population of participants.