Study Confirms Construct Validity of SalesKey®
Construct validity is the term used to define and describe the degree to which an assessment actually measures what it says it measures.
What should happen if you give an assessment that claims to predict sales productivity to a group with little or no sales experience? They should all bomb, right?
SaleskEY® was administered to a group of 25 students, none of whom expressed any interest in sales. Several had just enough sales experience to know they never wanted to work in sales again.
The SQ (Sales Quotient) scale has been proven in many studies to be a reliable and valid predictor of initial sales productivity. SalesKey® does not recommend hiring anyone who scores below 60 on SQ. All students in the sample scored below 60. Four students scored in a range that indicates they may possess some potential if an employer wanted to invest the resources necessary to develop them.
SalesKey® also measures test-taking behaviors. If the assessment is really measuring what it claims to measure, students should have worse Validity Check scores (measures internal consistency, decisiveness, face validity). In the total sales population, 6% score below 40, indicating hypothetical or unusable data. Of the students in the study, 30% answered hypothetically and inconsistently.
Four student athletes were part of the student sample. These athletes should score better on two scales; Energy (the amount of physical stamina one brings to a career) and Risk Sensitivity (a measure of stress tolerance). The average Energy score for athletes was 72 compared to 47 with the rest of the group. Athletes scored an average of 42 on Risk Sensitivity while non-athletes averaged 68. Lower Risk Sensitivity scores are associated with better stress tolerance. T-tests validated that these differences were not due to chance or accident (p<.06).
The implication of these findings is that SalesKey® possesses exceptional construct validity.