COA Assessment & Evaluation Techniques 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which type of rating scale asks evaluators to distribute a fixed percentage of employees across performance categories?
- Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS)
- Graphic rating scale
- Forced distribution (Correct answer)
- Critical incident method
Correct answer: Forced distribution
Forced distribution requires managers to assign set percentages of employees to each performance tier, preventing everyone from being rated 'above average.'
Question 2: A newly implemented office training program is evaluated six months later by measuring employee productivity gains. This is an example of which Kirkpatrick level?
- Level 1 – Reaction
- Level 2 – Learning
- Level 3 – Behavior
- Level 4 – Results (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Level 4 – Results
Kirkpatrick Level 4 measures tangible organizational outcomes such as productivity, cost savings, or quality improvements resulting from training.
Question 3: What does 'inter-rater reliability' measure in an evaluation system?
- Whether the assessment measures what it intends to measure
- The consistency of scores across different evaluators rating the same performance (Correct answer)
- The stability of scores over repeated administrations
- The correlation between assessment scores and job performance
Correct answer: The consistency of scores across different evaluators rating the same performance
Inter-rater reliability measures the degree to which two or more independent evaluators assign the same scores to the same observed performance.
Question 4: An office administrator creates a rubric with 'Exceeds Expectations,' 'Meets Expectations,' and 'Needs Improvement' anchored to specific observable behaviors. This tool is BEST described as:
- A critical incident log
- A behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS) (Correct answer)
- A management by objectives (MBO) plan
- A weighted checklist
Correct answer: A behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS)
A BARS links rating levels to specific behavioral descriptions, reducing ambiguity and increasing the objectivity of performance ratings.
Question 5: Which potential bias occurs when an evaluator's overall impression of an employee unduly influences ratings on individual performance dimensions?
- Recency bias
- Halo effect (Correct answer)
- Contrast effect
- Strictness bias
Correct answer: Halo effect
The halo effect occurs when a positive (or negative) overall impression causes an evaluator to rate all specific dimensions similarly, rather than independently.
Question 6: A supervisor consistently gives all employees 'satisfactory' ratings to avoid conflict. This tendency is known as:
- Halo effect
- Recency error
- Central tendency bias (Correct answer)
- Attribution error
Correct answer: Central tendency bias
Central tendency bias occurs when evaluators avoid extreme ratings and cluster all scores near the middle of the scale.
Question 7: In performance management, MBO (Management by Objectives) primarily evaluates employees on:
- Personality traits and attitudes
- Specific, measurable goals set collaboratively (Correct answer)
- Comparison to peer performance levels
- Years of experience and seniority
Correct answer: Specific, measurable goals set collaboratively
MBO is based on setting clear, agreed-upon objectives between manager and employee, then evaluating performance against achievement of those objectives.
COA Assessment & Evaluation Techniques 3
Which type of rating scale asks evaluators to distribute a fixed percentage of employees across performance categories?