A Monte Carlo Examination of Banding and Rank Order Methods of Test Score Use in Personnel Selection

Cascio, Outtz, Zedeck, and Goldstein (1991-this issue) examined the effects of various selection rules, including top-down, top-down within-group, fixed-band, and sliding-band approaches, on the mean test score of selected applicants and the proportion of minority-group members among those selected using one illustrative data set. A Monte Carlo simulation was conducted to examine the generalizability of their findings across various selection ratios, proportions of minority-group members in the applicant pool, magnitudes of majority-minority mean test score differences, and majority-minority test standard deviation differences. These characteristics were found to have large effects on minority-group hiring; thus in applied setting, values of these characteristics must be known before one can determine the consequences of various selection rules for minority-group hiring.