Marvin Neumann

Law graduates in the Netherlands who want to become a judge in court have to complete a four-year training after their studies. Since there are often more applicants than positions, the council for the judiciary (Raad voor de rechtspraak) has the aim to select applicants who are most likely to complete the training successfully and are thus eligible to become a judge. This constitutes a high-stakes selection decision, and applicants, the council, and society have an interest in optimising these decisions. The council tasked me and colleagues to evaluate the selection procedure for judges in training. The main aim was to investigate whether a whole range of selection instruments such as cognitive ability tests, personality questionnaires, interviews, and games can predict the performance of judges in training. Furthermore, the aim was to investigate how selection decisions are made, and how these can be improved. To achieve these aims, I analysed data from the selection procedure, interviewed 19 stakeholders, and surveyed previous candidates how they perceived the selection procedure. In this talk, I will present these results, focusing on the results of the validation study (N ‎ =  169) that I have conducted. I will also review the process of working together with various stakeholders such as hiring managers, assessment consultants, the client organisation, and the diverging perspectives between science and practice that arose. Implications for the science-practice gap and solutions how to narrow it will be discussed.