ABSTRACT
My task for this chapter is to summarize issues around three approaches to conceptualizing, developing, and operating contemporary assessment centers (ACs)—the dimension-based approach, the task-based strategy, and the mixed-model. Dimension-based centers use behavioral constructs as the dimensions of interest, behavioral-psychological variables determined by job analysis or related methods to be important for the target job(s). Task-based centers elevate exercises to the main focus and strive to evaluate assessees on a representative set of work-sample-like exercises designed to assess performance in highly job relevant tasks and roles, thus bypassing the requirement to abstract back to more psychological constructs. Finally, the mixed-model AC approach takes an interactionist position, that behavior in ACs is a function of both individual differences in behavioral tendencies and situational influences on behavior, that is, individual differences interact with exercise influences and demands, resulting in task and dimension relevant behavior.
