Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales

Ethical behavior in organizations indicates the need for performance appraisal

systems to explicitly include ethical dimensions of performance.

BARS refer to Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales. It is performance appraisals

technique developed by Smith and Kendall to provide a better method of rating

employees. Behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS) are a combination of the critical

incident and rating scale methods. Employee performance is rated on a scale but the scale

points are anchored with critical incidents. The development of BARS is time consuming,

but the benefits make it worthwhile.

It differs from "standard" rating scales in one central respect, in that it focuses on

behaviors that are determined to be important for completing a job task or doing the job

properly, rather than looking at more general employee characteristics e.g. personality,

vague work habits. Employees are also evaluated in terms of critical incidents of behavior

on the job.

Definition

Employee or trainee rating system in which they are graded according to their

display or absence of specific behavioral patterns

An appraisal method that uses quantified scale with specific narrative examples of

good and poor performance

Development of a Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale

. The use of this scale for conducting research on the process of making ethical

performance judgments is discussed. This study behavioral scale for assessing ethical

judgment using the Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS) procedure

The behavior criterion has been the most researched topic in performance

appraisal because of its potential to improve the quality of performance ratings. BARS

procedure was used for developing the ethical behavior scale. Incidents dealing with the

same behaviors are grouped to form BARS, which is objectively scored and may involve

either a checklist of behaviors or a rating scale assessing degree of behaviors.

BARS are constructed by the evaluators who will use them. There are four steps

in the BARS construction process:

Identification of performance dimensions

Development of critical incidents for these dimensions

Retranslation of these incidents into the original dimensions

Evaluate the effectiveness of the incidents

Advantages of BARS:

In theory, a BARS system, if properly implemented should result in fairer and

more accurate assessments of employee performance. In theory, they are indeed better

than more vague rating systems where it's hard to get any two people to agree on what a

particular rating item means.

A more accurate gauge

Clearer standard

Feedback

Independent dimensions

Consistency

Relatively simple to use

Low interference

Disadvantage of BARS:

Ratings still have inherent flaws, the most notable being that ratings themselves

are not very helpful in helping employees improve performance because too much

information is lost.

Another problem is that there is a tendency for people to believe that BARS

system ratings are objective and that is definitely not the case. Ratings cannot by

definition and by objective.

Requires expert observers

Might be difficult to discriminate between performance and Situational

Awareness

Questions too broad

Subjective (as with any questionnaire)

Compilation of critical behaviors takes considerable effort

development of BARS is time consuming

Conclusion:

This study provides a demonstration of the application of the BARS development

procedure to the generation of behaviorally based ethical rating scales. The scales provide

an initial set of behavioral dimensions that can be used to directly assess the ethicalness

of performance. The generation of these scales should probably be considered an initial

demonstration

This study provides a demonstration of the development of a behavioral scale for ethical

performance using the BARS procedure. I believe that development of such a scale is

necessary for studying process issues involved in ethical judgment process.

Reference:

http://www.performance-appraisals.org/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=10492

http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?

&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA195403

performance-appraisals.org/faq/bars.htm

www.businessdictionary.com/.../behaviorally-anchored-rating-scale-

BARS.html -