The Effects of Age and Job Experience on Employee Responses to a Structured Job Analysis Questionnaire

he use of job incumbents to fill out structured job analysis questionnaires has been of substantial interest in recent years. Because of the widespread use of " TM these questionnaires for obtaining incumbents' ratings of descriptive aspects of their jobs (e.g., frequency and duration of tasks, worker requirements), it is im­ portant to gain a better understanding as to what variables may affect incumbent responses. Until recently, only two studies have appeared in the literature examining incumbents' responses to structured job analysis questionnaires. Wexley and Silver­ man (1978) addressed the question of whether only a particular subset of incumbents (i.e., those most effective) should be involved in obtaining job analysis information by means of structured questionnaires. Their results suggested that both low and high performers respond in a similar fashion and therefore could both be used for gathering job analysis information. Cornelius and Lyness (1980) studied how edu­ cation level of the incumbent and length of time on the job affected the consistency