Assessment Center: A Critical Mechanism for Assessing HRD Effectiveness and Accountability

Assessment center (AC), driven by job analysis or competency development, has long proven to have strong content-related and criterion-related validities and some construct-related validity to assess behavior, which is one important dimension for demonstrating training effectiveness and human resource development (HRD) accountability. Yet, AC has not been effectively utilized in HRD research and practice for such purposes. This article reviews research and practice of AC, discusses validity issues of ACs, identifies conceptual and evidence-based factors that affect AC validity, and discusses strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities if AC is applied in HRD. The author suggests more adoption of AC to HRD practice. However, to make AC most useful for HRD and be able to integrate with other HR functions, HRD researchers should focus on how to improve the construct-related validity of ACs, particularly through design and development aspects of ACs and through the view of unified concept of construct validity.