AN APPLICATION TO JOB EVALUATION OF A POLICY CAPTURING MODEL FOR ANALYZING INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP JUDGMENT

Abstract : A major problem in developing a job evaluation plan is the estimation of individual rater consistency and degree of interrater agreement. A method for making these estimations is pro posed which combines a multiple regression model with a mathematical grouping model in quantifying a measure of predictive efficiency. Officers ranked 50 simulated Air Force specialties, each of which consisted of pre-assigned scale values for 10 job requirement factors. 38 officers ranked the jobs on the basis of merited grade, 36 on merited pay. Each rater's consistency was evaluated by a multiple regression equation predicting his rank-ordering of the jobs from the factor values. Consistency of policy among raters was measured by the loss in predictive efficiency when a single equation represented the joint policy of the group. Measures of rater consistency showed that all but 2 of the raters were adequately consistent. Measures of inter rater agreement indicated that raters were applying a homogeneous policy, whether they ranked on merited pay or merited grade. The officer raters (captains and majors) were capable of applying a consistent policy in evaluating jobs when their only information was an estimate of the job requirements.