Reference no: EM132303496

Purpose:

The purpose of this exercise is to give you practice in developing a test to measure one specific ability for the job of airline reservation clerk for a major airline. If time permits, you’ll be able to combine your tests into a test battery.

Required Understanding:

Your airline has decided to outsource its reservation jobs to Asia. You should be fully acquainted with the procedure for developing a personnel test and should read the following description of an airline reservation clerk’s duties:

Customers contact our airline reservation clerks to obtain flight schedules, prices, and itineraries. The reservation clerks look up the requested information on our airline’s online flight schedule systems, which are updated continuously. The reservation clerk must speak clearly, deal courteously and expeditiously with the customer, and be able to find quickly alternative flight arrangements in order to provide the customer with the itinerary that fits his or her needs. Alternative flights and prices must be found quickly, so that the customer is not kept waiting, and so that our reservations operations group maintains its efficiency standards. There may be a dozen or more alternative routes between the customer’s starting point and destination.

You may assume that we will hire about one-third of the applicants as airline reservation clerks. Therefore, your objective is to create a test that is useful in selecting a third of those available.

How to Set Up the Exercise/Instructions:

Divide the class into teams of five or six students. The ideal candidate will need to have a number of skills to perform this job well. Your job is to select a single skill and to develop a test to measure that skill. Please use only the materials available in the room. The test should permit quantitative scoring and may be an individual or a group test.

Please go to your assigned groups. As per our discussion of test development in this chapter, each group should make a list of the skills relevant to success in the airline reservation clerk’s job. Each group should then rate the importance of these skills on a 5-point scale. Then, develop a test to measure what you believe to be the top-ranked skill. If time permits, the groups should combine the various tests from each group into a test battery. If possible, leave time for a group of students to take the test battery.