The Validation of a Contemporary Selection Tool Utilized by a Police Agency in its Hiring Process

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis wasto assess the validity of acurrent selection toolused within a large metro police agencyin the state of Minnesota,as well as review the agency’s current and previous annual performance evaluations. Major research questions included: How much of the validity in officer performance can be explained by the series of interviews within the hiring process? How does the information obtained from the original performance evaluations compare to the information obtained from the newer performance evaluations? And how effective are the current annual performance evaluations compared to previous year’s performance evaluations?The officers’ scores on the series of interviews within the hiring processserved as the predictorsin this study and annual performance evaluationsservedas the performance criterion.In addition, twodifferent versions of annual performance evaluations and annual self-evaluations were compared to determine their effectiveness. Limited information existed to validate the selection tool. However, preliminary results suggest that the original performance evaluations obtained more performance-related information than their newer counterparts and were deemed more effective. Practical implications and future directions are described.