Michigan State University Extension
Diversity and Pluralism - 02160195
12/95/
ERIC TITLE NUMBER: ED253805 AUTHOR: Potter, Penny F.; Graham Moore, Brian E.
TITLE: Two Methods for Classifying Jobs into Equal
Employment Opportunity Categories. Working Paper 83/84-4-21.
YEAR PUBLISHED: 1984
NOTE: 19 p.; Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the
American Psychological Association (92nd, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada, August 24-27, 1984).
ABSTRACT: Most organizations planning to assess adverse
impact or perform a stock analysis for affirmative action
planning must correctly classify their jobs into appropriate
occupational categories. Two methods of job classification
were assessed in a combination archival and field study.
Classification results from expert judgment of functional
job analyses were compared to statistical profiles of the
Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ). From the data banks
of the PAQ services, 300 cases were randomly selected. In
order to obtain the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO)
classification for the selected cases, the jobs were first
categorized by industry. Major corporations in each of the
industrial areas were selected, and personnel officers of
the selected corporations were sent a questionnaire
containing the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT)
written job descriptions. They were asked to place the jobs
into one of the three EEO classifications. A discriminant
analysis was performed and statistical results slightly
favored the PAQ. The PAQ classification was 72 percent
correct compared to 70 percent for functional job analysis.
Results strongly support the notion that quantitative job
analysis data can be successfully used to classify jobs into
their EEO categories. The primary difference in the two
systems is in their ability to correctly classify unskilled
jobs, where the PAW job dimensions do considerably better
than the DOT worker function scales. (JAC)
KEY DESCRIPTORS: Comparative-Analysis; Data-Analysis
KEY DESCRIPTORS: *Equal-Opportunities-Jobs; *Job-Analysis
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