Criterion Reliability and the Prediction of Future Performance from Prior Performance

A major overall goal of personnel selection and classification research is to estimate population parameters, in the usual statistical sense of estimating a population value from sample data. For example, a population parameter of huge interest is the validity coefficient that would be obtained if the prediction equation developed on the sample was used to select all future applicants from the population of applicants. The next three chapters focus on this parameter in some detail. The sample value is of interest only in terms of its properties as an efficient and unbiased estimate of a population value.