Factors Affecting the Acceptance and Application of Developmental Feedback from an Executive Assessment Program PDF Download

Author: Tacy M. Byham
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Career development
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Developmental assessment centers are designed to give participants feedback about their behavior relative to success in senior management. In contrast to traditional assessment centers, developmental assessment centers are not focused solely on predicting performance, but on fostering change for participants. In the current study, a theoretical model of the factors necessary to bring about developmental change for persons who go through a developmental assessment center was created. The model suggests that source, message, recipient, and context variables influence five interrelated steps leading from feedback acceptance to completion of development activities. In our research, 79 middle managers or executives from a large manufacturing organization participated in an intensive one-day developmental assessment center session. After the session, they received feedback from professional assessors and completed a post-assessment survey to determine their levels of acceptance and motivation to engage in follow-up activities as a result of the experience. Approximately one year later, the participants completed a structured interview with the researcher to determine the extent to which they had created a formal development plan, the quality of any planned development activities, and whether they had completed the development activities. The two criteria of feedback acceptance and motivation to engage in follow-up activities had high average ratings-typical of high fidelity development assessment centers. And, as proposed, the significant correlates of acceptance were the expertise of the feedback provider and the face validity and perceived predictive validity of the developmental assessment center experience. The significant correlates of motivation to engage in follow-up activities were also the expertise of the assessors, whether the participants understood their feedback, and the perceptions that the feedback would be useful or beneficial in the future. Multiple regression analyses indicated that the recipient variable of motivation to learn explained substantially unique variance, indicating this personality trait plays a significant role in motivation to engage in follow-up activities. Interestingly, participants' acceptance of their developmental feedback and their motivation levels had limited or no impact on the remaining three criteria (i.e., formality and quality of the development plan and completion of development activities) that were collected a year following their participation in the developmental assessment center. The regression models indicated that the most significant contributor to the formality of development plans were perceptions of assistance from a manager or mentor in the creation of the development plan. The hypothesized relationship was substantiated, in that plans that were rated high in formality also were likely to be rated high in quality, meaning that the development goals were clear, achievable, behavioral, measurable, and prioritized and used a variety of learning methods to blend skill acquisition seamlessly into skill application. As hypothesized, these high-quality plans were more likely to be completed. The discussion focuses on the implication of the results for the proposed model and develops implication for applied practice."--Abstract.