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Willis et al, 2021

Full article: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-3200/9/4/53

AccessibleAcademia

Nothing about us without us
Who: Willis and colleagues
Where: Journal of Intelligence
Published: 2021
Title: Examining the Use of Game-Based Assessments for Hiring Autistic Job Seekers

Game-Based Assessments for Job Recruitment

This paper wanted to explore whether “game-based assessments” may offer a way to assess candidate ability for job roles without disadvantaging autistic candidates.

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Willis et al, 2021

The recruitment process contains intentional barriers designed to narrow the applicant pool down to the best candidate. However, they also include unintentional barriers which prevent the recruitment of neurodivergent candidates.

For example, the interview, which relies on social interaction skills, is so deeply ingrained into the recruitment process that there have been many programs to train autistic people to perform better at interview and very few attempts to change interviews to be more inclusive.

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Willis et al, 2021

Gamification has developed as a new format to assess cognitive ability. Games offer an engaging experience, they drive motivation, and offer instant feedback to players. Games also alleviate the anxiety associated with testing.

Research has shown that games might reflect true scores better than conventional testing does.

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Willis et al, 2021

There were 586 participants in this study. 263 were autistic.

The participants completed five competency-based structured behavioural interview questions, and two games.

The games were “serious games”; they are not intended to entertain, but they utilise game elements to make a functional task more engaging and enjoyable.

Their findings support the idea that gamified cognitive-ability assessments can provide a fair means to assess autistic candidates.