ABSTRACT
This chapter explains to better acquaint the practicing police psychologist with the validity issues applicable to the use of such assessment instruments, and reviews the evidence supporting the validity of the most popular instruments. It deals with a discussion of the evidence for the validity of some of the most popular measures used in pre-employment police psychological evaluations. Most police psychologists are concerned with the degree to which assessment instruments used as part of a psychological evaluation can be used to predict performance—either good or bad—at some point in the future, so predictive validity is the aspect of criterion-related validity most often explored by police psychologists. Most data samples for research on police psychological evaluations consist of assessment data collected during the course of routine evaluations. Some criterion-related research has also been performed on the Personality Assessment Inventory clinical scales for purposes of law enforcement selection. The chapter discusses the importance of criterion-related validity in police psychological evaluations.
