Abstract
M.Com. (Industrial Psychology)
A need to develop more economic methods of selecting large numbers of apprentices has arisen in the electricity supply industry. Previous work behaviour cannot be investigated with traditional personnel selection methods because the large majority of applicants have just left school and lacks work experience. Only apprentices of good quality are able to handle the expensive and sophisticated equipment which has resulted from rapid technological development. Of the large numbers of applicants involved made
considerable demands on recruitment officers. The need was therefore felt for the development of a valid and reliable pre-selection screening device in the form of a biographical questionnaire. Achievement motivation factors which also play a role in the selection of apprentices for training were also investigated. The purpose of the study can be summarized by the following three goals: to develop a biographical questionnaire which could be used as a screening or pre-selecting instrument to distinguish between
potentially good and poor apprentices to identify factors, by means of this questionnaire as well as an achievement motivation questionnaire, which may play a role in the
successful training of apprentices. to predict, with the aid of the biographical questionnaire, the achievement motivation questionnaire, a structured interview and a
psychometric test battery the success in training of the apprenticeship applicants.
The empirical investigation was applied to a sample of 278 apprentices between the ages of 16 and 20 years. Firstly, a biographical questionnaire consisting of 106 items was applied to 173 apprentices in the study. Statistically significant differences between
an existing group of good and poor apprentices were calculated for all 106 items using as the criterium the training result (consisting of a theoretical as well as practical mark). The questionnaire was then validated on a separate sample. An achievement motivation questionnaire (PMV) was then applied to 164 apprentices. A Principal factor analysis was applied and two main factors (divided into five sub-factors) were extracted. An analysis of these results revealed no significant differences when other norm groups of differing
composition were compared to this group.