Assessment Centers and Content Validity: Some Neglected Issues

Literature on the use of content validity to establish the job‐relatedness of assessment centers is reviewed. Most approaches to content validity are shown to focus on job‐analysis‐based exercise construction and dimension selection as the bases for determining the content validity of an assessment center. The article attempts to show that content validity requires more than the careful construction of stimulus materials (i.e., exercises); how these stimulus materials are presented to candidates and how responses to these stimuli are evaluated are also critical considerations in making judgments about content validity. Variability in the way these issues are dealt with is documented.