Biodata
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Biodata is a commonly used term in Industrial and organizational psychology for biographical data. Biodata surveys generally contain factual kinds of questions about life and work experiences, as well as to items involving opinions, values, beliefs, and attitudes that reflect a historical perspective. Biodata is very useful in personnel selection. The basis of biodata’s predictive abilities is the axiom that past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour. Biographical information is not expected to predict all future behaviours but can give an indication of probable future behaviours based on an individual’s prior learning history. Biodata instruments have an advantage over personality and interest inventories in that they can capture directly the past behaviour of a person, probably the best predictor of his of her future actions. These measures deal with facts about the person’s life, not introspection's and subjective judgements.
While resembling the standard job application form, a typical biodata questionnaire seeks to obtain more extensive and detailed information on significant events in applicants’ lives and especially on their past behaviours. Biodata measures may predict performance across so many aspects of behaviour as well as they do because responses to biodata items may serve to capture previous manifestations of the constructs and mechanisms that ultimately determine predictive relationships with criteria.
A Biodata instrument is scored and to make the scoring standardised, most Biodata instruments are in the form of multiple choice questions or Likert scale items.
In the South Asian community (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh), a biodata is essentially a marriage Résumé. Those of marrying age will have a biodata to exchange with prospective suitors. The purpose is similar to that of a resume, to eliminate some candidates from the pool of prospective suitors before meeting others. The biodata generally contains the same type of information as a resume (i.e. objective, work history, salary information, educational background), but will also include physical attributes, such has height, weight, hair/skin/eye color, and a photo. What most differentiates a biodata from a regular resume is information about the person's family. Members of the family (including siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, first cousins, etc.) are each listed with their career and educational background.
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