Development Assessment Centres: Practice Implications Arising from Exploring the Participant Voice

International Journal of HRD Practice, Policy and Research 2016, Vol 1 No 1: 85-99
Development Assessment Centres: Practice Implications Arising from Exploring the Participant Voice
Adam Turner, Health Education England (National Health Service, UK)
Lynn Nichol, University of Worcester, UK

This qualitative phenomenological study explores the short-to-medium term personal impact of Development Assessment Centres on UK healthcare managers. The study identified overarching themes relating to personal performance impact, enabling and disabling factors in Centre design, trauma and safety implications, and behavioural adaptation. Practice implications arising focused upon three key areas. Firstly, Centre design should equally enable both introverts and extraverts and provide conscious consideration toward behavioural adaptation amongst participants. Secondly, there is a need for adequate follow-up support to enable participants to continue to learn from their experience, whilst also mitigating any potential risk toward long-term trauma caused by such deeply personal experiences. Finally, where assessment and reward form an output from any Centre, judgement should be limited until a thorough de-brief has been undertaken with the participant to explore causal behavioural responses, as opposed to basing decisions on observed behaviour alone.

Introduction
Empirical studies relating to the impact and validity of Development Assessment Centres (Centres) have been undertaken since the 1970s. However, these appear to have taken a predominantly positivist and quantitative perspective. Although valuable in providing generalisability surrounding the practice-based application of Centres, there appears a lack of understanding toward the personal and lived experiences of participants involved in such activities and any practice-based implications that this may reveal.

A methodological approach employing Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to enable the exploration of the personal impact of Development Assessment Centres upon a small sample of UK healthcare managers. IPA was specifically chosen to allow us to connect to the lived experiences of this sample group through its person-centric approach. The study seeks to compare and augment our existing knowledge and to explore the potential of gleaning an added layer of insight that this purely qualitative approach brings to the field. Most importantly, it considers how practitioners using such Centres could apply its findings within both development and assessment contexts.
Development and Assessment Centres
Assessment Centres have been utilized to test for specific role and promotion suitability since the late 1970s, with the majority of research having been undertaken since the 1990s. In recent years, Development Centres have become more commonplace in personal and career development (Goodge, 1994; Hart, 1979; Hinrichs, 1978; Thornton and Krause, 2009; Tillema, 1998; Vloeberghs and Bergham, 2003; Wilson, 1996).

Although both approaches follow similar procedures and forms of assessment (e.g. psychometric tools, observed scenarios, in-tray exercises, multi-source feedback) there is general agreement that their underpinning purpose is different. Assessment Centres deductively assess for a specific suitability through a pass or fail approach, often testing for promotion suitability. Development Centres inductively generate self-insight to explore current performance, future potential and development gaps within a more nurturing environment. In all cases, there is a general consensus that the assessment and feedback aspects of Centres have a positive impact upon participants, which in turn increases both current performance and future potential (Arnold, 2002; Brits et al., 2013; Goodge, 1994 & 1995; Halman and Fletcher, 2000; Iles, 1992; Jansen and Stoop, 2001; Ritchie, 1994; Vloeberghs, 2003; Wilson, 1996).

More recent thinking identifies the interconnected nature between assessment and development within these Centres. Goodge (1994, 1995) cited as authority in several papers (e.g. Arnold, 2002; Hetty-van-Emmerik, 2008; Vloeberghs and Bergham, 2003) proposed First, Second and Third Generational approaches to Centres, identifying a continuum of assessment-development. First-Generation is designed for assessment and selection only, Second-Generation for limited personal development and Third-Generation for pure development with subsequent developmental support.

In acknowledgement of the overlap between development and assessment, the term ‘Development Assessment Centre’ has become more widely used, acknowledging that this hybrid-fusion is superior, flexible and more cost effective in practice. For example, Centres are commonly used to simultaneously develop the organisational workforce whilst also identifying high potential candidates as part of a talent pool for targeted investment, development, or promotion (Brits et al, 2013; Hetty-van-Emmerik and Bakker, 2008; Jorgensen and Els, 2013).
Whilst examining empirical literature surrounding Centres, it was observed that there appears a lack of high-quality empirical research into the field that focuses upon the participants’ personal perspectives of their experience, something that has also been cited by several authors (e.g. Arnold, 2002; Vloeberghs and Bergham, 2003). In terms of mixed methods perspectives, Arnold’s work (2002) endorses the performance enhancement aspects of Centres and Francis-Smythe and Smith (1997) discuss the psychological impact of Centres upon participants. However, the opportunity to help shape and finesse practice by exploring the lived experiences of participants does not appear to be a predominant theme within wider empirical studies. Practitioners are currently missing important perspectives surrounding Centre design and application that could be gleaned from such a participant-centric enquiry.

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Volume 1, Number 1