Meta-Analyzing the Relationship Between Grades and Job Performance

Employers and academics have differing views on the value of grades for predicting job performance. Employers often believe grades are useful predictors, and they make hiring decisions that are based on them. Many academics believe that grades have little predictive validity. Past meta-analyses of the grades-performance relationship have suffered either from small sample sizes or the inability to correct observed correlations for research artifacts. This study demonstrated the observed correlation between grades and job performance was .16. Correction for research artifacts increased the correlation to the .30s. Several factors were found to moderate the relationship. The most powerful factors were the year of research publication and the time between graduation and performance measurement.