The B-PAD Testing Procedure:

A. The candidate is seated before a video monitor and given instructions.

B. The candidate views three or four professionally acted and produced video scenarios--each portraying critical incidents as may be encountered on the job. (All scenes were developed by departments and rated for realism, difficulty, and importance to the job by subject matter experts.)

C. At the end of each video scenario, the candidate will respond to questions asked by the oral board.

D. The raters score the candidate's responses using standardized criteria. (Because the scoring criteria focus on social problem-solving behavior, not knowledge of law, policies, or procedures, scores are not dependent on previous job experience.)

E. The rating panel makes decisions about the candidate’s qualifications using the resulting scores.

Actual B-PAD candidate instructions (police, entry level).

B-PAD™ is the acronym that refers to Behavioral Personnel Assessment Device. B-PAD involves a behavioral response test that uses job-relevant video scenarios to simulate real situations on the job. Situational tests have been found to be highly predictive of job success.

The B-PAD Oral Board is a situational test that calls for the candidate to respond to a job-relevant scene by telling oral board members what he or she would do in a particular situation, as well as respond to follow-up questions. Such tests exhibit increased standardization, gender and ethnic fairness, reliability, and validity.

This oral board process incorporates realistic video situations you could face on this job. The job competencies assessed by the raters include:

• Problem Solving • Interpersonal Skills • Ethical Decision Making

Raters will be evaluating your responses to three separate scenarios shown on video. The oral board members will ask you questions about the scenes. After you are introduced to the panel members, you will be given the following oral instructions:

Oral Instructions to Candidate for B-PAD scenes:

“You will view three separate video scenes or situations. Each lasts about one minute. After each scene has ended, I will stop the video and ask you a series of questions about how you might respond to the situation in real life if you were the police officer at the scene. Follow-up questions are a standard part of the examination and do not mean your answer is inadequate. Remember, just respond as naturally as you can. You will be assessed on your ability to deal with the situation, not on your knowledge of any policies or local procedures. Do you have any questions before we begin?”

Please let the test administrator know if you require any accommodation in order to take this test. All of the material in this test process is confidential. By signing this, you acknowledge your understanding of these test instructions.