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On the Mystery (or Myth) of Challenging Principles and Methods of Validity Generalization (VG) Based on Fragmentary Knowledge and Improper or Outdated Practices of VG

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2017

In-Sue Oh  and
Philip L. Roth
In-Sue Oh*
Affiliation:
Department of Human Resource Management, Fox School of Business, Temple University
Philip L. Roth*
Affiliation:
Department of Management, College of Business, Clemson University
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to In-Sue Oh, Department of Human Resource Management, Fox School of Business, Temple University, 1801 Liacouras Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19122-6083. E-mail: insue.oh@temple.edu
Philip L. Roth, Department of Management, College of Business, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634-1305. E-mail: ROTHP@clemson.edu
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Extract

In their focal article, Tett, Hundley, and Christiansen (2017) stated in multiple places that if there are good reasons to expect moderating effect(s), the application of an overall validity generalization (VG) analysis (meta-analysis) is “moot,” “irrelevant,” “minimally useful,” and “a misrepresentation of the data.” They used multiple examples and, in particular, a hypothetical example about the relationship between agreeableness and job performance. Four noteworthy problems with the above statements, other similar statements elsewhere in Tett et al.’s article, and their underlying assumptions are discussed below along with alternative perspectives.

Type
Commentaries
Information
Industrial and Organizational Psychology , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , September 2017 , pp. 479 - 485
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology 2017 

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Footnotes

We thank Chris Berry, Ernest O'Boyle, and Frank Schmidt for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this commentary.

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