Issues of Assessment, Measurement, and Evaluation

Assessment, measurement, and evaluation are important if individuals, teams, and organizations ever hope to make correct, data-based decisions that can assist in efforts to keep the organization competitive and solvent. Personality trait, interest, and cognitive ability assessments are extensively used for development purposes and screening and selection decision making, despite concerns about who is trained and credentialed to properly administer and interpret the assessments. There are ethical, moral, and legal implications related to assessments that cannot be overlooked. Environmental context, faking, face-to-face versus computer-based testing, cultural diversity, disabilities, second language, stereotype threat, social networking websites, and formative and summative evaluations are explored as issues that impinge upon the proper use of personality trait, interest, and cognitive ability assessments. Research is advocated to develop cross-culturally valid measures and training and credentialing are presented as means to deal effectively with these issues.