Behaviorally Anchored Rating Systems - BARS

By Robert Bacal - A short discussion of whether BARS (Behaviourally Anchored Rating Systems are better than other systems. Bottom line: Ratings are still ratings. (Added: 12-Sep-2011 Hits: 120 )

By Mil - The military is often in a leadership position regarding evaluation and development of "employees". In this adobe acrobat file, you'll find a research report on the use of BARS in assessing tactical thinking. (Added: 12-Sep-2011 Hits: 94 )

By Joseph Maiorca - Worthwhile article on developing BARS items, but be sure to read the first paragraph referencing studies/analysis. "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. The BARS approach not only meets EEOC guidelines for fair employment practices but it may improve reliability of personnel assessment and enhance communication when evaluating employees (Maiorca, 1988; Shultz and Shultz, 1995). (Added: 12-Sep-2011 Hits: 86 )

By Beebe, Robert J. - Behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS), a new quantitative method of employee performance evaluation, is advocated for teacher evaluation. Development of a BARS consists generally of five steps: a representative sample of potential raters generates the scales; the group identifies the broad qualities to be evaluated; the group formulates general statements representing various levels of performance for each quality and lists examples of behaviors at each level; a second group, representing the ratees, receives lists of the broad dimensions and of the specific behaviors and assigns the behaviors to the dimensions; raters then assign unused behaviors to describe satisfactory and unsatisfactory employees across several dimensions. A discrimination index is computed for each behavior and point values assigned to each behavior within the dimensions. Items above a criterion level of point variability are eliminated. (Added: 12-Sep-2011 Hits: 51 )