A Re-analysis of Published Differential Validity Studies.

A survey of recent literature was undertaken to locate validity studies of paper-and-pencil tests which met the following criteria: (1) Studies were conducted in a business or industrial (i.e. non-education, non-military) setting; (2) Separate statistics were available for blacks and whites; (3) Race was not confounded with some outside variable which would preclude meaningful interpretation; (4) Necessary data were reported to enable a test of homogeneity of regression between racial groups. For each of 20 studies which met these criteria, a homogeneity of regression analysis was conducted on each predictor-criterion pair to determine if there were significant differences between blacks and whites in standard errors, slopes, or intercepts of the regression lines. The number of significant differences in standard errors and in slopes was less than would be expected by chance, indicating that tests do not have differential validity between white and black groups. For intercepts, significant differences in excess of chance were obtained. The direction of the differences was such that job performance of blacks was overestimated by tests. (Author)