Developing student competence relevant to real-world practice has been a persistent challenge in tertiary education. Organisational psychologists use assessment centres in industry to measure job-relevant competencies of employees or job-candidates to facilitate accurate recruitment or development decisions. Despite its potential as an innovative…

In high-stakes selection among candidates with considerable domain-specific knowledge and experience, investigations of whether high-fidelity simulations (assessment centers; ACs) have incremental validity over low-fidelity simulations (situational judgment tests; SJTs) are lacking. Therefore, this article integrates research on the validity of…

Inspired by the publication of "Leaders for America's Schools" (1987), a guide for improving administrator preparation, this paper identifies program components to be reformed, examines general problems associated with each component, and encourages thinking about solutions to some of these problems. Assessment centers to test administrator skills…

Participation of 347 business students was videotaped during an assessment center session involving in-basket exercises, group discussions, and a speech. Rater scores on behavioral checklists correlated modestly with traditional evaluation methods. Assessment centers provided higher-level assessment of skill acquisition. (SK)

Administrator selection is of increasing importance due to the critical relationship between administration and school success. To determine the extent of incorporation of the assessment center method--a source of skill information used for administrator selection and development--into administrator preparation programs, sets of data-gathering…

Describes a plan to assess 27 administrator candidates, drawing on a partnership between the Southwest Virginia Regional Assessment Center Leadership Academy and Virginia Tech's principal preparation program. Participants completed a reduced-item inbasket exercise, participated in leaderless-group and fact-finding exercises, and submitted a…

Throughout the United States, the Leadership in Educational Administration program helps new principals hone their administrative skills and provides a network of support and information. This article describes a Louisiana technical assistance program involving 5 universities and 15 beginning principals from various regions in the state. Includes…

Management education programs at Glasgow Caledonian University introduced Development Centres, involving students in self-assessment, career counseling, and development planning. Students viewed the centers positively as a means of bridging theory and practice, concepts and skills. (SK)

The relationship between scores on a typical bar exam and the ability to practice law was investigated with 485 applicants who took the bar exam and a 2-day performance test involving basic oral and written legal tasks. These tasks consisted of simulated cases; each participant functioned as the attorney for the plantiff in one case and as the…

This essay proposes the use of assessment centers, designed to simulate real-life situations and identify managerial skills, as a possible solution to dilemmas of current administrative personnel selection practices in academic libraries. Background, setting up the assessment center, obtaining assessment expertise, and legal implications are…

Describes the operation of assessment centers for determining administrators' strengths and weaknesses, identifies managerial competencies, and discusses the implications of using assessment center technology in university programs for preparing educational administrators. (PGD)

Compared the accuracy of self-assessment to expert assessment based on an assessment center procedure for a sample of 66 college students. Significant discrepancies were found between the student's and assessor's ratings on 10 of the 13 dimensions assessed. (JAC)

The construct and predictive validities of many administrator performance-assessment systems used for diagnosis, certification, and selection are questionable. The present study investigated both types of validity for one system, the Administrator Diagnostic Inventory (ADI). Results from assessing 316 individuals suggest that caution and…

Business undergraduates (n=261) participating in an assessment center simulation were evaluated by graduate students and faculty. Assessor-peer and assessor-self ratings lacked convergent and divergent validity, but self-peer ratings had both. (SK)

Assessment centers, used in business, industry, and government for the selection and development of promising individuals, have been used for school administrator selection only since the mid-1970s. Currently the Assessment Center Project of the National Association of Secondary School Principals is the only one in widespread use. To gather data…