AN EXERCISE DESIGN APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING ASSESSMENT-CENTER DIMENSION AND EXERCISE CONSTRUCTS

A robust finding in assessment center research is that ratings cluster according to exercises and not dimensions. Seeking further understanding of exercise effects, we proposed two exercise-based factors, exercise form and exercise content, as sources of variance in assessment center ratings. Exercise designs were manipulated so that two levels of form (leaderless group discussions and role play exercises) were crossed with two levels of content (cooperative and competitive task designs). Analysis of variance and confirmatory factor analysis procedures applied to multitrait-multimethod ratings of 89 high school student assessees revealed most of the variance in the ratings was explained by exercises and not dimensions. Exercise form accounted for 16% of method variance, whereas exercise content had near zero effect. The form effect was primarily due to higher correlations of dimension ratings across role play exercises. Practical implications and future directions for exercise design research are discussed.