What does I-O Psychology have to do with language proficiency?

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Before we can answer this question, let’s first define I-O Psychology. According to the American Psychological Association, Industrial-Organizational Psychology is the scientific research of human behavior and the application of research findings within the workplace to support individuals, groups, and organizations. I-O Psychologists are sought-after professionals that aim to address issues regarding humans in the workplace such as “recruitment, selection and placement, training and development, performance measurement, workplace motivation and reward systems, quality of life, structure of work and human factors, organizational development and consumer behavior” (APA, 2022, para. 3). The field of I-O Psychology looks both at the industrial side (assessing differences between individual job roles and workers) and the organizational side (exploring how workers function inside the business and how the business functions within the larger society) offering a more comprehensive approach to study work-related phenomenon in a scientifically methodological manner. So, it’s no surprise that large organizations, such as AT&T, have I-O Psychologists on their teams to help navigate these different aspects of human resources challenges, human behavior, and the experiences their employees create for their customers.

In a recent episode of “Language is Your Superpower” podcast, Host Lisa March speaks to Vinay Patel, PhD, a Senior I-O Psychologist working on the HR Research Team for AT&T. Currently, he works as an internal consultant focused on employee selection, assessment development, and validation space. This means that he is intimately involved in the development and maintenance of assessments that are used across the business, from the time a team member is selected, onboarded, and trained to learn the job, to when the team member experiences professional development and conducts the work, all the while ensuring a fair process for both the organization and the employee. From the business side, this offers a scientifically based, objective way of measuring employee performance and AT&T customers’ experiences. From the employee’s side, it ensures a reliable, validated, and fair process to assess an employees’ job performance, while minimizing subjective opinions or personalities that often get in the way. Essentially, it offers a more just and equitable way for the employer, employees, and team to work together to better serve their customer base and community.

Now that we have an idea of what I-O Psychology is, what does it have to do with language proficiency and how does it affect you? The reality is you can study and get a degree in a language, then not use it, resulting in losing your ability to be proficient in that language. Or you can be a native conversational speaker in another language but may or may not know the industry-related terminology or have the necessary occupational language skills to perform at your fullest potential. To accurately measure what you can do with your second language, particularly within your work-related role and responsibilities and within the organization, you need to have a fair and reliable assessment and process of evaluation. That’s how an I-O Psychologist helps to ensure a scientifically based, valid, and reliable means of measuring your language competency in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. AT&T is committed to offering professional development through language proficiency assessments for their employees, especially those that interface directly with customers, such in retail stores and call centers. For bilingual and multilingual employees at AT&T, language proficiency testing provides a great opportunity to validate their language skills and advance in their careers.

If you are a bilingual or multilingual professional interested in validating and certifying your language skills, you can depend on LTI to offer scientifically based, valid, and reliable assessments to determine your language proficiency in over 120+ languages. Visit LTI today and get certified anytime, anywhere!

Source: https://www.apa.org/ed/graduate/specialize/industrial

What should the standard be for language assessments?

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Do companies need a language testing assessment partner, or can they develop and administer their own assessments in-house? What are the repercussions to attempting a homegrown assessment? If a company does choose to hire a language assessment partner, how would that company know they are choosing the right vendor? At Language Testing International (LTI), these are common questions we address with our clients. However, instead of taking our word for it, let’s hear from someone who actually has to make these decisions and who has chosen to work with LTI.

On a recent episode of LTIs “Language Is Your Superpower” podcast, special guest, Vinay Patel, PhD, discussed what he and his team at AT&T look for when choosing a language testing partner, and offered advice from his experience as to what companies may want to avoid.

To start, Vinay mentioned a common pitfall that many companies run into, which is to try to develop and administer language assessments in-house. “For somebody that doesn’t have the background,” Vinay explained, to determine “in what actually is proficient and what’s not proficient, if they’re not using standardized criteria, you could really be getting yourself into quite a bit of trouble. You could be assessing things that seem like they’re assessing language, but it could be full of bias. So really, the advice that I would give is to be careful with homegrown assessments. Really, if you’re trying to measure language proficiency, do your research. So, go online, see what language proficiency is, how it’s defined, what’s required within your company, all that kind of stuff. There’s a lot of things to look at here before you just dive in and make homegrown assessments.”

Vinay continues to say that “the good thing about some vendors is that they’ve done that work. It’s their bread and butter. They use standard measures of what proficiency is. They’ve done a lot of the research on the back end with different languages. So, it [working with a language testing provider] might be a lot easier than trying to develop something in-house.”

At AT&T, Vinay outsources their language assessments, but explains that not all vendors are operating at the same level of experience. He goes on to detail what he looks for when helping to choose AT&T’s language assessment partners. “First and foremost, I want to make sure that the tests they are using or have developed are reliable and valid. I want to make sure that data has been collected on how good they are at doing what they are supposed to be doing. So, really, they have to be demonstrated. The second step would be that there needs to be room for validating these assessments locally. So, I’d want data from the people that are applying at this company and see how the test functions, and monitor that as we move along.”

Another factor in selecting a language proficiency testing provider is the cost. “The other thing that is something to consider is cost,” Vinay says. “You want to make sure that the test ultimately is providing utility. So, if the costs are right where they are supposed to be and you are getting enough juice for the squeeze, that’s something that I would consider when choosing an assessment partner.”

Vinay concluded with the third criteria he looks for: “Time-to-hired is a very important metric. We want to make sure that our candidate experience is as positive as possible. I want to make sure that the scores are turned around quickly, so the amount of time it takes for us to know if a candidate is qualified or not qualified in a particular language has to be fairly quick.”

Additionally, Vinay mentions the employee benefit and experience, which is detailed in “the way that the candidate interacts with it and walks away from the assessment. I would want data around that; if they viewed it as a positive experience or if they viewed it as something that was unfair and not job-related.”

As the exclusive licensee of ACTFL, Language Testing International (LTI) works very closely with and administers ACTFL assessments. We know first-hand that it requires years and years of research, subject matter expertise, norming tests, and confirming they are valid and reliable. Having served over 5 million test-takers over the last 30 years, we know it’s not an easy process, but ultimately is an extremely important process to continue to try and get right. It is important not just for the companies who hire us as their language assessment partner, like AT&T, but also for the experience of the job candidates and employees who are taking those assessments.

Job seeking? Why employers may ask you to do a language assessment.

close up of a resume

You are actively looking for a job and you also happen to be bilingual or multilingual. You come across a job posting by a potential employer with a job that is perfect for you and requires the languages you are fluent in. You have hit the jackpot! You apply, and during the selection process the recruiter asks you to take a language assessment. Why would an employer ask you to take a language assessment?

In a recent episode of “Language is Your Superpower” podcast, guest Vinay Patel, PhD, who is a Senior I/O Psychologist working with AT&T, shares why language assessments are so important to the hiring process. He used himself as an example as a speaker of Hindi. He considers himself fairly proficient. However, he questions how fluent he would be in a job interview. His perception of how proficient he is might not match what his actual proficiency is when measured with a proficiency assessment. It is easy to overstate one’s language ability. In fact, about 60% of all job applicants overstate their abilities on resumes, including language proficiency. Therefore, employers who rely on bilingual and multilingual employees need to have a reliable and validated method of checking job candidates’ language abilities so they can perform the tasks required for their jobs. Validated and certified language proficiency testing offers an accurate measurement of language level and eliminates the guesswork on whether a candidate truly possesses the language skills required for the job.

According to a recent ACTFL report titled, “Making Languages Our Business: Addressing Foreign Language Demands Among U.S. Employers,” 9 out 10 employers rely on language skills other than English to conduct their business and this demand is expected to increase by 56% in the next 5 years. Client and community facing departments, such as Customer Services, Sales, Marketing, Management, and IT have the greatest need, particularly with Spanish, Chinese, French, Japanese, German, and Russian, to name a few.

Dr. Patel advises that when and how a business employs a language strategy to track, test, and train employees’ language competency and proficiency it depends on many variables. If you are applying for a job and knowing a specific language directly relates to the minimum qualifications of the job that you are applying for, you may be asked to do a language assessment before employment. Or, if you are already on board, your employer may use your language skills as part of your professional development plan. Either way, Dr. Patel shares that the tool used to assess language proficiency is often contingent on the cost, strategy, and development involved in creating the tool. This is to ensure that the language test is reliable, valid, and doing what it is intended to do – assess the employees’ proficiency in a particular language competency that relates to their job roles and responsibilities or their professional development. Additionally, if you feel that the assessment was not fair, valid, or job related, it is an opportunity to provide feedback to your potential employer or to collaborate with your employer to better serve employees, the organization, and most definitely, the customers.  After all, the goal is to ensure that the employee meets the job qualifications, can effectively communicate with the community, and creates an extraordinary customer experience.

All in all, when you include “bilingual” or “multilingual” on your résumé or an employment application, don’t be surprised if the employer asks you to take a test pre- or post-employment as AT&T does with LTI as their language proficiency assessments provider. And even if they don’t, you can always validate your language proficiency by getting certified anytime, anywhere with Language Testing International. Get certified with LTI today!

 

Sources: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180820-can-you-actually-speak-the-languages-you-list-on-your-cv

Consistency and Bias in Assessing Language Proficiency

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Assessments in the workplace are aimed at identifying what skills and knowledge, acquired over time, a person can bring to the table. This also includes language assessments. Language is something you can study in school and get a degree for. However, to measure what a job candidate can do with language, the employer needs fair and reliable assessments, instruments, and processes in the form of proficiency assessments.  This will not only ensure consistency, but also prevent personal bias from entering the evaluation equation.

On a recent episode of LTI’s “Language Is Your Superpower” podcast, special guest Vinay Patel, PhD, explained the importance of using standardized language testing to assess language proficiency, especially in customer-facing positions, to provide consistency for the employer and an unbiased hiring process for the job candidate.

Vinay Patel is the Senior I/O Psychologist for AT&T in Dallas, Texas. In his role as an Industrial-Organizational Psychologist—a position that studies human behavior in organizations and the workplace through a combination of science and practice—Vinay focuses on assessment development, test validation, and organizational consulting. Vinay’s goal at AT&T is to apply his and the organization’s collective knowledge and principles to create a better, smarter workplace. For Vinay, an ideal workplace is one where people are genuinely happy about their jobs and contribute to their organization in a meaningful way, while the organization does everything in their power to keep their employees fulfilled. It is this vision that motivated Vinay to work towards his doctorate in I/O Psychology, and to continue meeting new people, experiencing new things, and never wanting to stop learning and improving his skillsets.

When discussing the importance of standardized language assessments at AT&T, and for businesses in general, Vinay believes that “it’s crucial to how business is conducted nowadays. So, from the business side of it, we want to make sure that the people that are entering are really prepared to do the work, so there isn’t that much time [for the employee to have to] catch up or hit the ground running.”

Vinay pointed out that standardized language testing benefits not just the employer, but also the employees. Vinay stated that “from the employee’s side, we really work hard to build reliable and valid assessments, so we’re really measuring only the things that are job-related. So, only the things that determine success and performance on the job, and really not any external characteristics or anything like that, that humans are normally biased when they’re making these judgements. So, it’s really built towards having a fair process for both the company and the employee.”

Vinay then elaborated how a properly conducted language assessment “allows employees to really showcase the skills that they have, rather than being conscientious about, anything else that they may think that the company is trying to measure, or if there are any biases in that process.”

At LTI, we know we live in a world where the mention of “standardized testing” may suggest negative connotations for some. However, as Vinay Patel, PhD, shared with us on our podcast, whether consciously or subconsciously, personal bias is human nature. So, when LTI language assessments are implemented and conducted properly, and for the right reasons, especially in a workplace environment like AT&T’s, they can be the key in ensuring that the employer is consistently aligning the best employees for the jobs at hand, based solely on the employee’s ability to perform the tasks required for those jobs – and nothing else!