Cullen, I'll take that as an admission that you couldn't name any peer reviewed studies about anything conducted and funded by anyone who doesn't have some stake in the outcome.
You also don't appear to have any basis, general or specific, that applicants are currently being rejected solely on the bass of polygraph.
Why didn't you just say so?
My illustrated point, which you mislabel a diatribe was merely given to emphasize your ridiculous position that in order for research to be valid it must be conducted by disinterested parties. That never happens. Everbody involved in any study has a stake in the outcome. Otherwise they have no incentive to do the study in the first place. I'm sorry the simple logic of that statement seems to escape you. The Crewes Study is the only part of my post that makes a direct comparison to polygraph screening and medical screening and as I posted previously, to date no-one has successfully refuted the findings of his study.
"If a police agency lined up all their applicants, had them count off, and then summarily removed all the even numbers from the hiring process, would you think it reasonable to argue that none of those applicants were entitled to a job in the first place, so they have no reason to complain? "
They might have a reason to gripe but they would be laughed out of court or arbitration because whether you like it or not the procedure you described is a perfectly LEGAL way to eliminate applicants because it does not discriminate against the applicant on the basis of race, gender, religon or political beliefs. Polygraph is a perfectly legal way to eliminate applicants and it that context (and only in that context) it really doesn't matter whether it works or not.
According to the American Medical Association Polygraph performs significantly better than chance. "It is established that classification of guilty can be made with 75% to 97% accuracy, but the rate of false-positives is often sufficiently high to preclude use of this test as the sole arbiter of guilt or innocence."
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/256/9/1172 Ask any statistician if you want to know whether or not 75% to 97% can be properly characterized as "significantly better than chance."
But once again The American Polygraph Association Policy for pre-employment testing clearly says:
"Polygraph test results should never be used as the sole basis for the selection or rejection of a law-enforcement or public-service applicant"
http://www.polygraph.org/files/delPolicyLE-PublicServicePre-employmenttestingJan... It appears that the American Polygraph Association and The American Medical Association are in full agreement that polygraph results should not be used as the sole basis for a hiring decision.
It isn't very likely that polygraph will ever be eliminated from law enforcement hiring procedures.
Not likely at all. If you want to have a significant positive effect on leveling the playing field in the hiring process where polygraph is concerned, why don't you try to identify those agencies that are still using polygraph as the sole arbitor in hiring, failing to use the successive hurdles approach, or violating the American Polygraph Association Policy in any manner and encourage rejected applicants to base their appeals on APA policy violations? The APA may never publicly censure those agencies who violate their policies but neither will they voice support for anyone who fails to follow them.
The questions I would ask a rejected applicant would be along the lines of.
How many tests were you given?
A failure on a single test question series of 3 or 4 charts without a follow-up test is a strong indcation that the successive hurdles approach was not followed.
Who told you that you were rejected?
How did they tell you?
Did you get anything in writing?
This information might provide evidence of an APA policy violation.
Did you lie or omit any information before or during the test that pertained to a past criminal act or falsifying of application documents?
If they did, they were rejected because they lied and got caught. You can't help them.
Did you attempt or were you accused of countermeasures?
If someone was caught using countermeasures there isn't much you'll be able to do to help them because they got caught cheating.
If any of these questions lead you to believe that APA policy was violated refer them to the APA policy and suggest that they read it thoroughly and point out any potential policy violations in their appeal letter. You should also suggest that they sit down immediately and commit to paper every thing they can remember about the test and what was said by whom and when it was said. This will enable them to better respond to any questions raised in the appeals process.
You'll never beat them by griping about it or by using George's book.
If you want to whip them, whip them with their own switch, in this case the APA preemployment testing policy.