Assessing and Training at Work

Investigates the values of Behaviourally Anchored Rating Scales(BARS), in assessing and training student nurses at work. Seven experienced practitioners had been asked to state what they thought they would be saying about any student whom they placed at each behavioural level on a BARS system. The resulting data showed that stereotypes of work behaviour were used in making assessment. This process affected the value of the BARS as an assessment system, and hampered on‐the‐job training; students scored at the poorer end of each scale were seen as negative, deviant people. Two of the subjects had been able to use the stereotyped data to expand their own constructs of a person performing at each level of work behaviour represented by the BARS. The ensuing constructs had been stated in a way which had allowed them to be used by less experienced assessors both to assess and to train students at work.