In order to continue enjoying our site, we ask that you confirm your identity as a human. Thank you very much for your cooperation.
Format APA APA Chicago Harvard MLA AMA
Barakji, F. (2017). Scales, forced choice. In M. Allen (Ed.), The sage encyclopedia of communication research methods (pp. 1553-1554). SAGE Publications, Inc, //dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483381411.n545
Barakji, Fatima Abdul-Rahman. "Scales, Forced Choice." In The SAGE Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods, edited by Allen, Mike, 1553-54. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc, 2017. //dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483381411.n545.
Barakji, F. 2017. Scales, Forced Choice. In: Mike Allen Editor, 2017. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods, Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. pp. 1553-1554 Available at: <//dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483381411.n545> [Accessed 27 Oct 2022].
Barakji, Fatima Abdul-Rahman. "Scales, Forced Choice." The SAGE Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods. Edited by Mike Allen. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, Inc, 2017, pp. 1553-54. SAGE Research Methods. 27 Oct 2022, doi: //dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483381411.n545.
Barakji, Fatima Abdul-Rahman (2017). Scales, forced choice In: Allen, Mike (Ed.),Scales, Forced Choice The sage encyclopedia of communication research methods Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc; 2017:1553-1554. doi:10.4135/9781483381411.n545
copy to clipboardExport to your reference manager Endnote Endnote Reference Manager ProCite RefWorks BibTeX Zotero Medlars Mendeley Word
By Danielle Smyth Updated December 08, 2020
The forced distribution model of employee performance management is a widely acknowledged and highly debated management strategy. It has been implemented in large-scale manufacturing corporations and small, lean teams with varying levels of success, but it has mostly been abandoned for a “check-in” method where managers regularly confirm that employees are meeting or exceeding their goals and providing guidance where needed.
Sometimes called the “forced ranking” or “forced choice” method, forced distribution is a form of employee evaluation in which employees are ranked against one another rather than performance standards, explains SuccessDart.
The method is done by stack ranking the employees from first to last or by creating three to five groups and evaluating each employee’s skills and performance within those bounds. The result is typically a bell curve with a small percentage of low- and high-performing employees and a large population of middling employees.
The top tier can be encouraged to continue exceeding expectations with raises, and promotions or stock benefits. Middling performers can be given lesser raises and goals to meet along with training and encouragement to meet those goals. Poor performers are encouraged to do better in the next evaluation cycle or face release from the company to seek success elsewhere.
There are benefits and risks to implementing the forced distributions model, explains SHRM. Benefits include streamlining your staffing and dispassionately creating a team of motivated and capable employees to achieve real gains. The risks of forced distributions include increasing employee competitiveness to the point of debilitating teamwork and positive office culture, which results in burnout, high turnover and the sabotage of coworkers to achieve personal gain.
The forced choice method can be a crucial step in turning around a floundering company, especially in cases where management has avoided hard conversations or evaluations of the staff. Using an arbitrary numerical system to rank employees based on their accomplishments compared to their peers removes sentiment and bias, forcing managers to confront employees who are likable or have personal relationships with coworkers but are failing to perform.
Proponents claim that companies who find this method stressful have failed to lay the groundwork in office culture and communication, but Clear Review explains that many business consulting companies encourage moving away from the “rank and yank” method of management.
General Electric CEO Jack Welch was a strong advocate of the method and implemented it for the nearly 20 years he headed the company. This resulted in growing the company’s market value from $12 billion to $410 billion, says NPR.
A strict policy of terminating the bottom 10 percent-ranked staff every year was just one example of how Welch pushed GE to new heights in terms of market worth. It removed low-performing members and incentivized the remaining employees to do better at all costs, which created a sleek and powerful corporate missile aimed at the highest possible financial gains for upper management.
Namely explains that Yahoo has had numerous lawsuits brought on by the arbitrary termination of large swathes of employees due to its implementation of the forced distribution method to meet quotas of termination numbers or percentages. Some claimants put forth that the system was designed to be biased against women, while others that it was biased against men. Regardless of their demographics, employees did not accept being terminated because they didn’t make an arbitrary cutoff.
Many companies have moved away from the forced distribution method since 2015. Even the highest performing employees eventually burned out, and removing the “worst” employees is regarded as treating a symptom of dysfunction in the company, not the cause. In the infamous words from the cult classic film “Office Space,” setting arbitrary cutoffs and goals to inspire competitiveness makes someone work just hard enough to avoid being fired.
The forced-choice methods were developed as a means to deal with problems associated with traditional psychophysical methods. In the traditional methods, participants can guess or even alter their response levels to appear more or less sensitive than they are, and the experimenter would not know. So, in forced-choice methods, the structure of the trial changes. In the most basic forced-choice experiment, the stimulus can be in one of two places or in one of two intervals. Then, instead of asking you if you see or hear the stimulus, you are asked where or when the stimulus occurred. If you do not know when or where the stimulus is, you have to guess. That is the forced in forced-choice.
In this experiment, the forced-choice is paired with a method of constant stimuli experiment. The way the stimuli are chosen follows the method of constant stimuli while the trials are run, according to forced-choice. This change leads to a bit of problem. In method of constant stimuli, the threshold is determined as the point where you detect the stimulus 50% of the time. Well, if you are guessing and there are only two options, when you cannot really detect the stimulus, you will be correct 50% of the time. To adjust for this issue, the threshold is determined as the stimulus intensity you correctly detect 75% of the time in a forced-choice experiment. To review method of constant stimuli, look here.
To see the illustration in full screen, which is recommended, press the Full Screen button, which appears at the top of the page.
Stimulus Settings Tab
On this tab, you can adjust the various parameters of the stimulus to see how this might affect your ability to detect the dot. The settings include the following:
Dot Diameter: the diameter of the dot in pixels.
Dot Position: the distance the dot is above the fixation mark (in number of diameters of fixation mark).
Background Level: brightness of the background against which the dot is to be detected (in the basic intensity values of the screen). The dot values are differences from this level.
Reset: at the top of the settings page is a Reset button. Pressing this button restores the method settings to their default values.
Method Settings Tab
On this tab, you can adjust how the method will work. The settings include the following:
Type of Method of Constant Stimuli: Traditional or Forced-Choice. In Traditional, you be asked if the stimulus is present. In Forced-Choice, you will be asked if the stimulus is in one of two locations or one of two time periods. Forced-choice is default in this version of the experiment.
Number of Levels of Relative Dot Luminance (display values): how many different levels of intensity of your stimulus.
Number of Repetitions: How many times each stimulus will be presented.
Minimum Value of Relative Dot Luminance (display values): what is the least intense dot to be displayed.
Maximum Value of Relative Dot Luminance (display values): what is the most intense dot to be displayed.
Reset: at the top of the settings page is a Reset button. Pressing this button restores the stimulus settings to their default values.
Experiment Tab
On the Experiment tab, press the space bar or the Start button on the screen to start the experiment. Keep your eyes fixated on the red plus sign in the middle of the screen. A dot will be presented above this mark. Forced-Choice Method Instructions: In addition to the dot being above the fixation mark, it will be either to the right or to the left of the fixation mark. After the dot has been presented, buttons will appear, asking if the dot is to the left or right of the fixation mark. Click the proper button or press Z for left or the / key for right. If you do not know which side the dot appeared, you must guess. Traditional Method Instructions: After the dot has been presented, buttons will appear, asking if you have see the dot. Click or press Yes (or press the Z key) if you have and No (or press the / key) if you have not seen the dot. When the experiment has been completed, you will be instructed that you can view your results.
Results Tab
Your data will be presented on this tab. On the x-axis will be the different levels of intensity of the stimulus. On the y-axis will be the proportion of trials where you correctly reported detecting the stimulus postion (for forced-choice) for each intensity. To see your threshold, which is the determined by a simple linear interpolation method, click the button that says Show Threshold. The value will be shown below the graph and highlighted on the graph. To display the data showing the proportion of trials you detect each stimulus intensity click the Show Data button.
Settings for Stimuli in Method of Constant Stimuli Experiment
Change the settings below to alter the stimulus parameters in this experiment.