Aptitude tests determine if a person is apt to do the job. In other words, can the candidate perform a job function? Predicting if someone will do the job is a challenge. Predicting if someone will lie, cheat or steal is also a challenge. The premise behind EyeDetect is that is indicates recent, past behavior. The employer can determine how to use that information to take action with an employee.
Personality tests try to determine if there is a job fit from a behavioral perspective. The challenge with a personality test is that there are no right or wrong answers. The test will assess a person’s dominance, altruism, neuroticism, egotism, psychopathy, introversion, etc. or other items. Some personality tests try to assess a person’s willingness to pretend to be good. Employment personality tests try to determine a person’s interaction style and behavioral tendencies. They attempt to assess aspects of personality that remain relatively stable throughout a lifetime. They also attempt to predict future behavior.
Integrity tests assess the likelihood an employee will engage in dishonest behavior. This is an attempt to predict future behavior. An “overt” integrity test discusses past criminal behavior and attitudes about honesty, drug use, theft and counterproductive behavior. If a person is completely honest, this test can be very valuable. Deceptive individuals may not be forthright in their responses.
One notable study entitled “The Use of Integrity Tests for Pre-employment Screening” discusses the validity of integrity tests. The study was published by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) of the U.S. Congress.

Some points of interest follow:

STUDIES ON WORKPLACE THEFT

The results from 5 studies on workplace theft showed that integrity tests misclassified dishonest persons as honest between slightly less than 1% to 6% of the time. The tests also misclassified honest people as dishonest from 73 to 97% of the time. In summary, workers were misclassified between 18% to 64% of the time. (pp 10-11)

STUDIES ON COUNTERPRODUCTIVE BEHAVIOR AT WORK

The results from 3 studies on counterproductive behavior showed that integrity tests misclassified counterproductive persons as productive between 18 to 29% of the time. Two of these studies also misclassified productive people as counterproductive from 22 to 29% of the time. (p 11)

HONEST PEOPLE FAIL

Other research showed that between 30% and 60% of all applicants will “fail” an integrity test (categorized as dishonest). There will be an important percentage of honest people that are turned away. (p. 12)