Abstract

Reliability and validity are concepts that provide the scientific foundation upon which we construct and evaluate predictor and criterion measures of interest in personnel selection. They offer a common technical language for discussing and evaluating (a) the generalizability of scores resulting from our measures (to a population of like measures), as well as (b) the accuracy inferences we desire to make based on those scores (e.g., high scores on our predictor measure are associated with high levels of job performance; high scores on our criterion measure are associated with high levels of job performance). ¹ Furthermore, the literature surrounding these concepts provides a framework for scientifically sound measure development that, a priori, can enable us to increase the likelihood that scores resulting from our measures will be generalizable, and inferences we desire to make based upon them, supported.