Extending H.R. 3564 and H.R. 4949 to Federal Examining

The goal of the Federal employment programs is to hire qualified individuals based on merit principles giving everyone an equal opportunity to compete for a job. To achieve this goal various examining procedures have been designed to help assure that the most competent and productive people are employed. GAO supports the intent of both H.R. 3564 and 4949 with respect to improving the quality and availability of information about tests. However, GAO has reservations about the potential cost and feasibility of extending certain provisions to Federal examining. The most important reservations relate to sections of H.R. 4949, requiring the public disclosure of all test items, and to the section in H.R. 3564 which prohibits the assignment of scores to knowledge and achievement tests on the basis of rank order. Various arguments have been made to the effect that the Federal government would experience a substantial economic burden if it were requested to provide copies of test questions and correct answers to examinees. Such a procedure would preclude reuse of any items and require new ones to be prepared each time a test is given. The concern with H.R. 3564 is with the distinction made between aptitude test and achievement test and the prohibition against grading the latter on the basis of relative distribution of scores of other test subjects. Office of Personnel Management's analysis of the relationships between test scores and the various job performance measures showed that those who scored higher on the test tended to be the ones who also scored higher on the measures of job performance. In addition to these productivity considerations, it should be noted that Veteran's Preference legislation does require a rank ordering of applicants. Although the intent of these bills is to improve the chance for equal achievement, those provisions which have caused concern could bring about the end of testing in the Federal government.