THE ROLE OF GENDER IN A DEVELOPMENTAL ASSESSMENT-CENTER

Male (n = 119) and female (n = 90) professional employees in a large f inancial services organization participated in a one-day developmental assessment center, and Mere assessed irt three dyadic role-playing ex ercises by male or female assessors. In each exercise, one assessor ra ted participants art specific behaviors which were subsequently averag ed by a computer program to produce final exercise dimension ratings. Results showed no significant differences in ratings for male and fema le assessees on any dimensions in any of the exercises. Women assessor s rated candidates of both sexes higher on some dimensions than did ma le assessors in an employee counseling exercise, but there were no ass essor gender differences in the sales call and problem analysis exerci ses. Further, there were no significant interactions between assessee and assessor gender for any of the exercises. The present findings att est to the inherent fairness of the assessment center method for human resource selection and development.