The relationship between individual aptitude test scores and job performance for employees in selected Harare companies

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to test the relationship between individual aptitude tests score results and actual job performance, as measured in selected Harare companies. The rationale for the study was based on the observation that some people who do well on the job but have not necessarily passed psychometric tests, also experience has shown that candidates fail psychometric test when they have excellent reference letters from previous employers. The significance of this study was to enable selected Harare companies to have an insight into the relationship between psychometric tests and job performance as a way of informing their recruitment policies. There are no studies to the researcher’s knowledge that have been carried out in Zimbabwe on aptitude test as a valid predictor of job performance. Also the previous studies did not focus much on aptitude tests. This study was quantitative in nature and the simple random sampling technique was used. The researcher obtained the performance rating score of employees who took part in the research from their respective companies through the help of Industrial Psychology Consultants, the aptitude tests score results were obtained from Industrial Psychology Consultants since they are the tests administrators. Individual test scores on aptitude tests where correlated with performance rating scores. The major finding of this investigation was that all three subtests of differential aptitude tests namely verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning, and abstract reasoning correlated positively with job performance. A moderate correlation r 0.39 between aptitude tests and job performance was found leading to the rejection of all the null hypothesis. The researcher would recommend that the organization which use aptitude test/ psychometric test to continue using these tests as they are valid predictors of job performance, and also organizations which do not use these to start using them for their recruitment/ selection process. To the future researcher would recommend that they focus on larger sample or include many job families in order to generalize results.