Fairness and Adverse Impact
Adverse impact is less of a problem in an AC as compared to an aptitude test designed to assess the cognitive abilities that are important for the successful performance of work behaviors in professional occupations (Hoffman & Thornton, 1997). A study including two nonoverlapping samples of employees in a utility company showed that the AC produced adverse impact (i.e., violation of the 80 percent rule) at the 60th percentile, whereas the aptitude test produced adverse impact at the 20th percentile. Although the AC produced a slightly lower validity coefficient (r = .34) than the aptitude test (r = .39) and cost about 10 times more than the test, the AC produced so much less adverse impact that it was preferred. Also, a more recent meta-analysis found an overall standardized mean difference in scores between African Americans and whites of .52 and an overall mean difference between Latinos and Whites of .28 (both favoring whites) (Dean, Roth, & Bobko, 2008). Regarding gender, the meta-analysis found a difference of d = .19 favoring women. So, overall, although whites score on average higher than African Americans and Hispanics, the difference is not as large as that found for cognitive ability tests. Moreover, on average, .women receive higher AC ratings compared to men.