مقایسهٔ روش‌ها

	Assessment Center Method	Critical Incident Technique
حوزه	رفتار سازمانی	رفتار سازمانی
خانواده	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
سال پیدایش	1982	1954
پدیدآور	George C. Thornton III & William C. Byham	John C. Flanagan
نوع	Behavioral selection and development assessment procedure	Qualitative behavior-elicitation and classification procedure
منبع بنیادین	Thornton, G. C., III, & Byham, W. C. (1982). Assessment Centers and Managerial Performance. Academic Press. ISBN: 9780126906202	Flanagan, J. C. (1954). The critical incident technique. Psychological Bulletin, 51(4), 327-358.
نام‌های دیگر	Assessment Centers, AC Method, Development Center, Multiple-Exercise Assessment	CIT, Flanagan Critical Incident Technique, Critical Incidents Method, Critical Incident Analysis
مرتبط	3	3
خلاصه	The assessment center method evaluates people, most often candidates for managerial roles, by observing their behavior across multiple job-relevant simulations and pooling the judgments of several trained assessors. It is a method, not a place: a standardized procedure in which candidates work through exercises such as in-baskets, role-plays, leaderless group discussions, and case analyses while assessors rate defined behavioral dimensions. George Thornton and William Byham's 1982 book consolidated the approach and its evidence, establishing assessment centers as a rigorous, behavior-based alternative to interviews and paper tests for selection and development. The method's logic is to sample behavior directly under realistic conditions and to triangulate across exercises and raters to reach defensible judgments. Arthur, Day, McNelly, and Edens's 2003 meta-analysis quantified the criterion-related validity of the underlying dimensions, sharpening understanding of what assessment centers actually measure. Professional guidelines from the International Task Force on Assessment Center Guidelines govern sound practice.	The critical incident technique (CIT) is a qualitative procedure for studying human behavior by collecting and classifying detailed accounts of specific incidents in which behavior was especially effective or ineffective in achieving an aim. John Flanagan introduced it in his landmark 1954 Psychological Bulletin article, drawing on his work selecting and classifying aircrew in World War II, where vague trait descriptions had proved useless and concrete behavioral accounts proved decisive. Rather than asking people for opinions or generalities, CIT asks observers to recount what actually happened, what the person did, and why it mattered, then builds a framework of behavioral requirements inductively from those accounts. The technique gave applied psychology a rigorous, replicable way to derive job requirements, performance criteria, and training content from real behavior. It remains a foundational method underlying job analysis, behaviorally anchored rating scales, and competency modeling. Its hallmark is grounding abstract requirements in observable, situated action.