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Custom essay on Discuss how an organization may improve the validity and reliability of selection interviews

Interview is a qualitative method, i.e. the emphasis is on the quality of descriptions, nuances, differences, rather than on collecting quantitative data (Edenborough, 2007: 136). Therefore, the interviewer should focus on neutral issues, implying descriptive answers, but shouldn’t ask questions about the reasons of candidate’s action and deeds, giving an employee a chance to explain them him/herself (which is actually a usual practice in selection interviews)(Chen, 2008: 1056-1071). Here an analogy with questioning of a patient could be made: a doctor collects the history, but is not asking the patient to put his own diagnosis. Interpretations and conclusions is the task of an interviewer, not interviewee.
Another problem of establishing reliability is that an interviewee can express controversial opinions which are difficult for interpretation. It is necessary to distinguish whether communication errors take place (wrong expression, misunderstanding, etc.), or this is an internal inconsistency of personality, or the social situation expresses in a question is controversial as such (Moret, 2007: 24-39). custom essay
Interpretation of the interview is directly connected with the major phases of its holding. Depending on the specific phase, various depth of interpretation is possible (Kvale, 2008: 180). In the first phase, the interviewee describes the specific situations of his/her life-world without any own comments and interpretations; there’s also no interpretation from interviewer’s side. In the second phase, the interviewee discovers new connections, sees new meanings of what he/she felt or did; there’s no direct interpretation of the interviewer. In the third phase, the interviewer expresses his initial interpretation; the interviewee can confirm or refute it. Thus, the deepening of interpretation may occur in the form of dialogue (in accordance with the hermeneutic position).
The fourth phase presents interpretation of the completed and recorded interview by the interviewer. There are three levels of interpretation: a) the level of understanding of the meaning of an interview by the interviewee (the researcher refines and clarifies candidate’s point of view); b) the level of common sense, when the researcher recognizes the general value of information gathered during interviews; and c) the theoretical level, when the researcher can consider the results obtained during the interpretation of interviews from the standpoint of a certain general theory. There’s also the possibility of the fifth phase or a re-interview, during which the interpretation made by the researcher on primary interviews is clarified and verified (Kvale, 2008: 180-183).
In this case, re-interviewing reliability gives us an evaluation of constancy in time. While there are no fixed values of acceptable levels of reliability, coefficients of reliability for the majority of standardized psychological method make above 0,70. The closer is the coefficient of reliability to +1, the more reliable is the interview (i.e. the evaluation of candidates during the second interview is very close to the evaluations in the first one) (Moret, 2007: 24-39). In addition to repeated interviewing, reliability could be improved through correlating the parallel forms of the interview: then an interview is usually divided into two comparable parts, between which the interpreter later finds acceptable correlations. The resulting ratio is the coefficient of internal consistency (Dipboye, 2001:35-49).
The problem of reliable interpretation lies in the sphere of its hermeneutical understanding. Hermeneutic interpretation of the text, worked out by G. Radnitzky (1998: 107-119), generally coincides with the main provisions of the analysis of the interview and includes 7 canons.