Validity Revisited: A Critical Review of Braun and Knoche's Study of the Predictive Validity of Psychological Appraisal Testing

Abstract

The aim of the present paper is to critically review a study by Braun and Knoche (1978) which claims to demonstrate the predictive validity of psychological appraisal testing. As Lansbury and Spillane (1983) have noted, “in Australia there is surprisingly little research evidence to support the claims of managers and their consultants who persist in subjecting people to personality tests” (p. 44). Given this dearth of Australian research, it is not surprising that Braun and Knoche's study is frequently cited at seminars and in the Australian literature (eg. see Saul, 1980) as an example of the utility of psychological testing in general and personality testing in particular. In other words, this study has become something of a ‘classic’ study among the Australian psychological testing community. As Carey (1976) has shown in his review of a number of classic studies in the area of industrial psychology, classic studies tend to be frequently cited but rarely read. Thus, over time, any flaws in these studies were overlooked as they became part of the common body of knowledge of the field — in Kuhnian terms, these studies became part of the shared paradigm of industrial psychology (Kuhn, 1970). It is therefore of some importance that academics and practitioners are familiar with the details of frequently cited papers in their field and the aim of the present paper is to examine a frequently cited paper in the field of psychological testing.