Biodata (Routledge Revivals)

Biographical Indicators of Business Performance

Barrie Gunter, Adrian Furnham, Russell Drakeley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781138644885
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317240778
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

First published in 1993. This book is intended for managers and occupational psychologists involved in the selection and assessment of the workforce. It details the history and development of the use of biographical data for both recruitment and promotion of employees. Grounded in relevant research literature, it offers a comprehensive analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of biodata in different contexts. It also includes examples of applications and recommendations for use, as well as examples of questionnaires. Written by experts, it represents a wide-ranging review of the contemporary research in the field. This work will be of interest to students of business and psychology.

1 Introduction

What are biodata?

DEFINITION AND DESCRIPTION

Biodata – biographical accounts of past events – are information concerning an individual’s personal life history and experience. Biodata refer to the various sorts of information individuals are frequently required to provide when writing their curriculum vitae (résumé); filling out application forms for jobs, insurance companies and government offices and answers to questions candidates are required to give at interviews. In essence they refer to biographical details of a person’s life: the individual’s conception of his or her own history.

Many people assume that for individual behaviour the best predictor of the future is the past. That is, the sort of experiences that a person has had and the ways they have coped with them best predict their future behaviour. There is therefore nothing new in the concept of biodata because they refer to objectively validatable items or samples of biographical behaviour that are systematically gathered, scored, compared and assessed against specific, usually work-related, criteria.

There are various reasons why biographical research has never been a popular research activity in psychology. These include the questions of biodata objectivity, reliability and validity, and most researchers have suggested too many sources of error and bias in this type of data. Second ‘whole person’ research in psychology is quite rare. Psychologists are also particularly interested in comparing and contrasting individuals on the same criteria and data revealed from biographies simply do not allow for it.

A universally agreed definition of biodata does not exist. Among the most frequently cited, and probably the best definition, is autobiographical data which are objective or scorable items of information provided by an individual about previous experience (demographic, experiential, attitudinal) which can be ‘presumed or demonstrated to be related to personality structure, personal adjustment, or success in social, educational or occupational pursuits’ (Owens, 1976, p. 612). Thus, biodata encompass wider aspects of personality and motivation than behaviour alone. Also, this definition emphasizes a classical predictive model of selection. In other words, as biodata are said to be items which can be demonstrated to be related to success in occupational pursuits, they can be regarded as the ‘predictors’ of a specific ‘criterion’ of success.

Typically, biographical items are selected from the following list from Owens et al. (1966):

● Classification or simple demographic data

● Habits and attitudes

● Health

● Human relations

● Money

● Parental, home, childhood, teens/experiences

● Personal attributes

● Present home, spouse, and children

● Recreation, hobbies, and interests

● School and education

● Self-impressions

● Values, opinions, and preferences

● Work

Thus items of biodata have been classified under different categories such as ‘background’ data (e.g. parents’ social class, types of school attended), ‘commitment’ data (e.g. leisure activities), and ‘achievement’ data (e.g. school and work performance) (Drakeley, 1989).

Perhaps the easiest way to describe biodata is to examine various examples of questions used. Table 1.1 presents a sample list of biodata items by way of illustration.

Biodata measuring instruments also come in a number of varieties, not all of which rely on autoobiographical accounts. Allport (1942) reviewed the use of personal documents in psychological science. He listed them as including autobiographies, questionnaires, verbatim recordings, diaries, letters, and expressive and projective productions. He also noted that biographical data had been employed in studies of attitudes where there was an apparent concern with criteria for life history.

Table 1.1 Examples of biodata items

In how many different cities, towns, or townships have you lived? 1 1 to 3 2 4 to 6 3 7 to 9 4 10 to 12 5 13 or more.

Have you been in the armed forces? 1 Yes, as an officer 2 Yes, as an enlisted man/woman 3 Yes, both as an officer and as an enlisted man/woman 4 No, but you were a civilian employee of the government 5 None of the above.

How often do you tell jokes? 1 Very frequently 2 Frequently 3 Occasionally 4 Seldom 5 Can’t remember jokes.

How do you regard your neighbours? 1 Not interested in your neighbours 2 Like them but seldom see them 3 Visit in each others’ homes occasionally 4 Spend a lot of time together.

About how many new friends have you made in the past year? 1 No need to make new friends 2 One or two 3 Three or four 4 Six or more 5 Can’t remember exactly.

Before you were 18 years of age, how many times did your family move from one house to another? 1 Never 2 Once 3 Two or three times 4 Four or five times 5 Moved every year or so.

In what section of town did your family live longest while you were growing up? 1 Lived in one of the most exclusive sections of town 2 Lived in a good but not the best section 3 Lived in an average section of town 4 Lived in one of the poorer sections of town 5 Lived in a rural area.

While in school, how often did your father or guardian appear to take an interest in how you were doing in your classes? 1 Never 2 Once in a great while 3 Frequently 4 Always.

While in high school, about how many evenings a week did you go out? 1 Less than one 2 One 3 Two 4 Three 5 Four or more.

How creative do you feel you are? 1 Highly creative 2 Somewhat more creative than most in your field 3 Moderately creative 4 Somewhat less creative than most in your field 5 Not creative.

As you grew up, how did you feel about school? 1 Liked it very much 2 Liked it most of the time 3 Just accepted it as necessary 4 Was often a little unhappy with it 5 Cordially disliked it and was glad to finish.

How many times did you change schools before you were 16 years of age other than by graduation? 1 Never 2 One or two times 3 Three to five times 4 Six or more times 5 I can’t remember.

How do you compare with your friends in athletic ability? 1 You are very much better than most 2 You are a little better than average 3 You were about average 4 You are a little poorer than most 5 Your friends are very much better than you.

How do you feel about the time you have to do your job? 1 Have time for everything without feeling pushed 2 Wish you had a little more time to plan and to think 3 Necessary to keep pushing to get everything done 4 Very hard to do what is expected of you in the time available 5 Never seem to have enough time to do everything.

Is the type of work which interests you most that which: 1 Has much fine detail involved 2 Has some fine detail aspects 3 Very seldom requires fine detail work 4 Would never require you to bother with fine details.

How do you feel about travelling in your work? 1 Would enjoy it tremendously 2 Would like to do some travelling 3 Would travel if it were necessary 4 Definitely dislike travelling.

Source: Owens, et al. (1966).

Biographical items may therefore be found in measures that are variously referred to as application blanks, biographical information blanks, individual background surveys, life history blanks and biographical interviews.

Exactly what items should be classified as ‘biographical’ is quite controversial (Henry, 1966). For example, a biographical item may vary on any of the following dimensions:

● Verifiable–unverifiable

● Historical–futuristic

● Actual behaviour–hypothetical behaviour

● Memory–conjecture

● Factual–interpretive

● Specific–general

● Response–response tendency

● External events–internal ev...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Introduction: what are biodata?
• 2 Different approaches to biodata
• 3 Why use biodata: advantages and objections
• 4 Constructing a biodata instrument
• 5 Criterion-related validity: what do biodata predict?
• 6 Recent applications of biodata
• 7 Biodata in use
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index