Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales

Retranslation is the heart of the BARS method. After developers tentatively assign critical incidents to performance dimensions, a separate, independent group of expert judges is asked to sort the same incidents into dimensions on their own. Only incidents that a high proportion of these judges independently place in the same dimension are kept. Smith and Kendall called this 'retranslation of expectations' because the incident must survive being translated back into a dimension by fresh judges. It matters because it filters out ambiguous incidents: if independent experts cannot agree what an incident exemplifies, it would confuse raters, so removing it is what gives the anchors their shared, unambiguous meaning.

The theoretical case is strong, but the empirical evidence is mixed. Decades of research comparing BARS with graphic rating scales and other formats found that the improvements in reliability and reductions in errors such as leniency and halo were generally modest and not always present. The construction process is also costly. That said, BARS offer real advantages beyond raw psychometrics: the behavioral anchors improve the clarity and defensibility of ratings, support better feedback, and engage users in development. So BARS are valued less for dramatically higher accuracy than for the shared behavioral language and procedural legitimacy they bring to appraisal.

Both use behavioral content, but they ask raters different questions. Classic BARS, originally behavioral expectation scales, ask the rater to judge what an employee could be expected to do and to locate them against behavioral anchors arranged from poor to excellent. Behavioral observation scales (BOS), a later variant, instead list specific behaviors and ask how frequently the employee actually performed each one, then sum or average the frequencies. BARS thus emphasize expected level of effectiveness anchored by examples, while BOS emphasize observed frequency of concrete behaviors. Both descend from the critical incident technique and the goal of grounding appraisal in behavior rather than vague trait judgments.