Task-based performance appraisal for blue-collar jobs: Evaluation of race and sex effects

Abstract

Court standards for job analysis were used to develop a task-based performance appraisal instrument for use with multiple blue-collar jobs in a small plastics plant. The instrument consisted of 10 performance categories (i.e., general reasoning, written communications) that were rated in terms of importance to the job and performance. Race and sex effects in performance appraisal scores and overall performance rankings of 150 employees (of whom 62 were Black and 88 were female) in 3 jobs were analyzed with separate factorial analyses of covariance. Neither race nor sex effects were significant with the performance appraisal data. There was a significant race difference with the overall ranking data, although it accounted for only 2% of the variance. In a 2nd study, a similar instrument was used to analyze race and sex differences in performance appraisal for 233 employees (of whom 31 were female, 50 were Black, and 30 were Hispanic) in 3 job groups of a large petroleum refinery. Neither race nor sex effects were significant. Findings support the use of the task-based approach to performance appraisal. (14 ref) (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)