This Post is Authored by Archana D (During migration the authors name could not be migrated)
Seeing humour in everything we do is one of the best ways to stay happy they say... and thats what I did !!! Here are some of the best bloopers that I have come across while evaluating the MeritTrac Written English Tests....
Scenario 1: As the manager of an internet book store, explain to a customer as to why there was a delay in the shipment of a book.
Let me clear my stand that, we had the books till the customer who bought before you and then it went out of stock.
It was due to some problem in the ship engine. The ship was laid down in the nearby island.
The books were already loaded to ship and the ship was about leave we got a red alert signal from the whetter forecast dept that there may be a storm, so you please pull your ship if there are leaving the shores. So because of whetter reasons we had to held the ships back.
The ship was stuck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
The ship was hijacked by sea robbers in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Scenario 2: As the manager of Reader's Digest, send a mail to existing customers requesting them to renew their subscriptions.
Please subscribe today because tomorrow never dies.
The digest has various advantages which helps in development of mental health of customer.
Sooner you are, better you get.
I kindly oblique you.
Its being a problem for the reader's reading Readers Digest.
It would be of great help if you could renew yourself as soon as possible.
Finally, I have a Career Objective taken from a resume that I found really interesting...the Monarch of Jargon!
Career objective:
Manipulating the tedious into salubrious to catch up with the palpable dividends with a relentless rapt for extracting the best from the good remains the hall mark in the scale of notching the apex.
Hope you had as much fun reading these as I had in compiling them. It would be great if all the evaluators could share their experiences with all of us!!
Showing posts with label Recruitment Test - Communication Skills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Recruitment Test - Communication Skills. Show all posts
Thursday, July 26, 2007
English Evaluation - A Personal Perspective
This Post is Authored by Arindam Moulick (During migration the authors name could not be migrated)
At the dawn of the hot summer month this year - after my cool induction program at Bangalore MeritTrac office - I wondered aloud, a bit contemplatively then, that I should without recoil have to be exemplifying my sense of right and wrong that would go into expounding the entire gamut of English Evaluation (E.E.) dispensation. And once into the team of E.E. at Hyderabad office, I stepped onto the novelty of the lingual efficiency of the English language.
A ‘sense of right and wrong’ is pretty apparent a rationale, I know, but a fine combinational basis of deep-set assessment parameters furnished by MeritTrac and a sagacious ability to promptly identify or distinguish the best from out of the sizeable (sometimes sundry) restless lot seemed totally different a challenge for me. To judiciously recognize and assess the employable resources for our diverse list of clients is bound to remain a lucky inclination for me.
Basing upon my personal experiential knowledge, I tend to hypothesize on the lines that few of the job aspirants or test takers who take our wide-ranging tests seem not to realize the fact that almost every step of test taking is ‘measurable’ by standards (often defined standards), or is at once scalable based on the scores of assorted parameters relating to which we test administrators get on to score them.
Conversely, even if they (test takers) are superficially aware or are quite clearly knowledgeable about the aforementioned aspects, then they seem to take up all into their stride and score well, eventually ‘coming out’ with ‘flying colours’ and, then, an impending selection process awaits them. But, by sheer happenstance, may be, or like each cloud is said to have a silver lining, some likely selects most often than not happen to flounder. Well, this too can be reasonably explained as to why they happen to do so as they do! Several reasons have been propounded but lets not for the life of this article delve into that reality. That may be for some other time with another cup of tea.
I have had my “laughter challenges” during and after many English assessment procedures I carried out in the duration of the last three months now. I can’t help but think pretty often and habitually share them with other English Evaluators in my team, and I do so only for the sake of an agreeable experiential know-how though! There are so many unheard of bloopers, slip-ups, lapses, gaffes, and so many meaningless howlers that my personal list has already gone bust and went out of order, all smacking of some inconsequentially misused and abused English Language terrorism! But there is going to be an article written soon on that subject too in this blogosphere. So, puhleese! Hasten to fasten your seat belts!
There was as if a significant yet compelling itch to hilariously relate a few innocent offenses made by some fresh-off-the-boat aspiring candidates who were lined up for our English assessments, especially for the Spoken English first round, with my equally industrious associates. And I, eventually, could not help but surrender laughing at the often splitting or even atrociously funny, comical bloopers experienced first-hand! God is with me! Innocent mistakes are so sweet to know and almost therapeutically rejoicing! Likewise, there have been some silly peccadilloes and during that time amusing within our selves became the first point of release of our stresses and strains of our jobs. In the present times, it is more of been-there-done-that way of thinking that generally prevails upon us, without letting it concede on our deductive capacity. Bloopers or no bloopers, they matter a little less now.
The most significant facet of the E.E. exercise on a more epithelial level – depending upon the assessment criterion, for instance, whether it be Spoken, Written or Persuasive - is the elemental detection of ‘plausibility’ of the resource in question, besides which - hardly considered necessary to mention - there are other auxiliary technical traits like articulation (for Spoken - SET), sentence formation (both for Spoken and Written - WET), Indianisms, writing abilities (clearly for Written), persuasive abilities (for Persuasive Communication - PCT), etc. (all these based on defined set of parameters, normally on a scale of 1 to 5). ‘1’ is ‘poor’ and ‘5’ being ‘remarkable.’
On a personal level, I almost always tend to believe that any candidate or test-taker must have to be free from claustrophobic ideas because the answer to the given question should have to be only in accordance to the question asked and not fumbling into anything else unwanted that the interviewer never wishes to give all ears to. Because, if your answer has to be most suitable in its desired effect in that spur of the moment, then it should really have to come within the purview of the question asked and not getting “uncomfortably imbalanced” (only an opinion!) with the asker of the fine question! If not, the candidates lose marks and their general gravity found flaking off the scoreboard! The million-dollar question is how do we do it? Clear the mind from unwanted pounding that distracts. I think one needs a good night sleep after which in the morning a nice cool shower and a light breakfast in the belly! This thought is surely unconventional but trust the good Lord it helps the most.
‘Events’ the most popular action-oriented word in Operations department and in my English Evaluation dept. as well, is quite a weighty source for a good first-hand learning experience. I dub it as ‘action-oriented’ because it is really so based upon a display of pursuits and activities, what with all its direct surprises and learning expectations from interactive sources and, in fact, be as it may, the opportunity to represent MeritTrac at the most fundamental level and that which is happening right at the client’s place is most opportune a moment for MeritTracers everywhere. For any individual who is looking out for some added bonuses in terms of intermingling with a lot of business customers, then this is it: the right channel for us to represent as MeritTrac professionals our assessment competencies and know-how and to a progressive extent, as assessment executives, our kitty full of comprehensive skills assessment portfolios as well.
I have had my sojourns assessing for different customers where I noticed people performing distinguished work solely on the basis of opportune ideas that get generated while at work. At the helm of affairs were fairly consummate opinions and thoughts in rapid exchange with each other. These ideas were those, which were related to the exercises we all were primarily put out for. The stake of it all was hinged upon our very basic sense of business acumen. There has been a superior sense of belonging to the tasks at hand, by all accounts, to the good ideas and their continual consequences: mainly those which were simply generated at the spur of the moment. These ideas and exchanges most often than not look very logically bare and almost always are unaccounted for merely because they happen every day on a daily basis. But to a generic observer of ideas and thoughts of all kinds, wherever they might exist, in whatever form or substance, they eventually do form a chiseled gem quietly embedded in the chain of a wholesome experience.
I end this critique with a bated breath and, therefore, basking in the glory of the English Evaluation sunshine I shall never allow myself to sail my humble boat to the last sunset! The legend of good English language speakers does exist, but the associative contraband myth that it doesn’t, if there was one, has gone outdoors forever!
At the dawn of the hot summer month this year - after my cool induction program at Bangalore MeritTrac office - I wondered aloud, a bit contemplatively then, that I should without recoil have to be exemplifying my sense of right and wrong that would go into expounding the entire gamut of English Evaluation (E.E.) dispensation. And once into the team of E.E. at Hyderabad office, I stepped onto the novelty of the lingual efficiency of the English language.
A ‘sense of right and wrong’ is pretty apparent a rationale, I know, but a fine combinational basis of deep-set assessment parameters furnished by MeritTrac and a sagacious ability to promptly identify or distinguish the best from out of the sizeable (sometimes sundry) restless lot seemed totally different a challenge for me. To judiciously recognize and assess the employable resources for our diverse list of clients is bound to remain a lucky inclination for me.
Basing upon my personal experiential knowledge, I tend to hypothesize on the lines that few of the job aspirants or test takers who take our wide-ranging tests seem not to realize the fact that almost every step of test taking is ‘measurable’ by standards (often defined standards), or is at once scalable based on the scores of assorted parameters relating to which we test administrators get on to score them.
Conversely, even if they (test takers) are superficially aware or are quite clearly knowledgeable about the aforementioned aspects, then they seem to take up all into their stride and score well, eventually ‘coming out’ with ‘flying colours’ and, then, an impending selection process awaits them. But, by sheer happenstance, may be, or like each cloud is said to have a silver lining, some likely selects most often than not happen to flounder. Well, this too can be reasonably explained as to why they happen to do so as they do! Several reasons have been propounded but lets not for the life of this article delve into that reality. That may be for some other time with another cup of tea.
I have had my “laughter challenges” during and after many English assessment procedures I carried out in the duration of the last three months now. I can’t help but think pretty often and habitually share them with other English Evaluators in my team, and I do so only for the sake of an agreeable experiential know-how though! There are so many unheard of bloopers, slip-ups, lapses, gaffes, and so many meaningless howlers that my personal list has already gone bust and went out of order, all smacking of some inconsequentially misused and abused English Language terrorism! But there is going to be an article written soon on that subject too in this blogosphere. So, puhleese! Hasten to fasten your seat belts!
There was as if a significant yet compelling itch to hilariously relate a few innocent offenses made by some fresh-off-the-boat aspiring candidates who were lined up for our English assessments, especially for the Spoken English first round, with my equally industrious associates. And I, eventually, could not help but surrender laughing at the often splitting or even atrociously funny, comical bloopers experienced first-hand! God is with me! Innocent mistakes are so sweet to know and almost therapeutically rejoicing! Likewise, there have been some silly peccadilloes and during that time amusing within our selves became the first point of release of our stresses and strains of our jobs. In the present times, it is more of been-there-done-that way of thinking that generally prevails upon us, without letting it concede on our deductive capacity. Bloopers or no bloopers, they matter a little less now.
The most significant facet of the E.E. exercise on a more epithelial level – depending upon the assessment criterion, for instance, whether it be Spoken, Written or Persuasive - is the elemental detection of ‘plausibility’ of the resource in question, besides which - hardly considered necessary to mention - there are other auxiliary technical traits like articulation (for Spoken - SET), sentence formation (both for Spoken and Written - WET), Indianisms, writing abilities (clearly for Written), persuasive abilities (for Persuasive Communication - PCT), etc. (all these based on defined set of parameters, normally on a scale of 1 to 5). ‘1’ is ‘poor’ and ‘5’ being ‘remarkable.’
On a personal level, I almost always tend to believe that any candidate or test-taker must have to be free from claustrophobic ideas because the answer to the given question should have to be only in accordance to the question asked and not fumbling into anything else unwanted that the interviewer never wishes to give all ears to. Because, if your answer has to be most suitable in its desired effect in that spur of the moment, then it should really have to come within the purview of the question asked and not getting “uncomfortably imbalanced” (only an opinion!) with the asker of the fine question! If not, the candidates lose marks and their general gravity found flaking off the scoreboard! The million-dollar question is how do we do it? Clear the mind from unwanted pounding that distracts. I think one needs a good night sleep after which in the morning a nice cool shower and a light breakfast in the belly! This thought is surely unconventional but trust the good Lord it helps the most.
‘Events’ the most popular action-oriented word in Operations department and in my English Evaluation dept. as well, is quite a weighty source for a good first-hand learning experience. I dub it as ‘action-oriented’ because it is really so based upon a display of pursuits and activities, what with all its direct surprises and learning expectations from interactive sources and, in fact, be as it may, the opportunity to represent MeritTrac at the most fundamental level and that which is happening right at the client’s place is most opportune a moment for MeritTracers everywhere. For any individual who is looking out for some added bonuses in terms of intermingling with a lot of business customers, then this is it: the right channel for us to represent as MeritTrac professionals our assessment competencies and know-how and to a progressive extent, as assessment executives, our kitty full of comprehensive skills assessment portfolios as well.
I have had my sojourns assessing for different customers where I noticed people performing distinguished work solely on the basis of opportune ideas that get generated while at work. At the helm of affairs were fairly consummate opinions and thoughts in rapid exchange with each other. These ideas were those, which were related to the exercises we all were primarily put out for. The stake of it all was hinged upon our very basic sense of business acumen. There has been a superior sense of belonging to the tasks at hand, by all accounts, to the good ideas and their continual consequences: mainly those which were simply generated at the spur of the moment. These ideas and exchanges most often than not look very logically bare and almost always are unaccounted for merely because they happen every day on a daily basis. But to a generic observer of ideas and thoughts of all kinds, wherever they might exist, in whatever form or substance, they eventually do form a chiseled gem quietly embedded in the chain of a wholesome experience.
I end this critique with a bated breath and, therefore, basking in the glory of the English Evaluation sunshine I shall never allow myself to sail my humble boat to the last sunset! The legend of good English language speakers does exist, but the associative contraband myth that it doesn’t, if there was one, has gone outdoors forever!
Monday, June 25, 2007
Inter-rater Reliability
This Post is Authored by Sree Krishna (During migration the authors name could not be migrated)
Spoken English Test - one of the factors that influences the quality of this test are the raters. The quality of the evaluations is dependent on the consensus factor of each rater against the standard rater.
A note on Consensus Estimates:
Consensus estimates can be useful in diagnosing problems with the raters’ interpretations of how to apply the rating scale
Consensus estimates of inter-rater reliability are based on the assumption that reasonable raters should be able to come to exact agreement about how to apply the various levels of a scoring. If two raters come to exact agreement on how to use the rating scale to score, then the two raters may be said to share a common interpretation of the construct.
“If raters can be trained to the point where they agree on how to interpret a rating scale, then scores given by the two judges may be treated as equivalent”
There are different methods of computing Consensus estimates:
Percent-agreement: The most popular method for computing a consensus estimate of inter-rater reliability is through the use of the simple percent-agreement figure. Percent agreement is calculated by adding up the number of cases that received the same rating by both raters and dividing that number by the total number of cases rated by the two raters.
The statistic also has some distinct disadvantages, however. For example, if the behavior of interest has a low incidence of occurrence in the population, then it is possible to get artificially inflated percent-agreement figures simply because most of the values fall under one category of the rating scale (Hayes & Hatch, 1999). Another disadvantage to using the simple percent-agreement figure is that it is often time consuming and labor intensive to train judges to the point of exact agreement.
Cohen’s kappa statistic - designed to estimate the degree of consensus between two judges after correcting the percent-agreement figure for the amount of agreement that could be expected by chance alone. Kappa is a highly useful statistic when one is concerned that the percent-agreement statistic may be artificially inflated due to the fact that most observations fall into a single category.
The disadvantage to the kappa coefficient is that it is can be somewhat difficult to interpret. Uebersax (1987) has noted that one major problem is that values of kappa may differ depending upon the proportion of respondents falling into each category of a rating scale. Thus, kappa values for different items or from different studies cannot be meaningfully compared unless the base rates are identical.
Spoken English Test - one of the factors that influences the quality of this test are the raters. The quality of the evaluations is dependent on the consensus factor of each rater against the standard rater.
A note on Consensus Estimates:
Consensus estimates can be useful in diagnosing problems with the raters’ interpretations of how to apply the rating scale
Consensus estimates of inter-rater reliability are based on the assumption that reasonable raters should be able to come to exact agreement about how to apply the various levels of a scoring. If two raters come to exact agreement on how to use the rating scale to score, then the two raters may be said to share a common interpretation of the construct.
“If raters can be trained to the point where they agree on how to interpret a rating scale, then scores given by the two judges may be treated as equivalent”
There are different methods of computing Consensus estimates:
Percent-agreement: The most popular method for computing a consensus estimate of inter-rater reliability is through the use of the simple percent-agreement figure. Percent agreement is calculated by adding up the number of cases that received the same rating by both raters and dividing that number by the total number of cases rated by the two raters.
The statistic also has some distinct disadvantages, however. For example, if the behavior of interest has a low incidence of occurrence in the population, then it is possible to get artificially inflated percent-agreement figures simply because most of the values fall under one category of the rating scale (Hayes & Hatch, 1999). Another disadvantage to using the simple percent-agreement figure is that it is often time consuming and labor intensive to train judges to the point of exact agreement.
Cohen’s kappa statistic - designed to estimate the degree of consensus between two judges after correcting the percent-agreement figure for the amount of agreement that could be expected by chance alone. Kappa is a highly useful statistic when one is concerned that the percent-agreement statistic may be artificially inflated due to the fact that most observations fall into a single category.
The disadvantage to the kappa coefficient is that it is can be somewhat difficult to interpret. Uebersax (1987) has noted that one major problem is that values of kappa may differ depending upon the proportion of respondents falling into each category of a rating scale. Thus, kappa values for different items or from different studies cannot be meaningfully compared unless the base rates are identical.
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