When an individual responds dishonestly and in a strategic manner on a psychological test, this is regarded as faking (Grieve & Mahar, 2010). Faking good refers to the act of deliberately altering test scores in order to appear more favourably (McFarland & Ryan, 2000). In high demand contexts such as selection for employment ‘applicant faking’, faking can be especially concerning (Tett & Christiansen, 2007). A job offer may be a reward for faking job-relevant traits well on a personality scale (Tett & Simonet, 2011). Organisations may then be at risk of hiring an applicant who has presented an incongruous personality profile, which may then have negative consequences for the organisation and the employee. It also means that an applicant who is a better fit with the organisation has missed an opportunity to be hired (Tett & Simonet, 2011).

Research into different administration modes has noted that online and telephone administrations provide good alternatives to pen-and-paper testing, and there are a number of benefits associated with these media. For example, the low-cost of online and telephone testing has been cited (Baca, Alverson, Manuel, & Blackwell, 2007; Templer & Lange, 2008), the ability for these media to reach people in rural areas (Baca et al., 2007), increased access to larger samples (Ryan, Wilde, & Crist, 2013), and to broaden the demographic profiles of respondents (Casler, Bickel, & Hackett, 2013; Lewis, Watson, & White, 2009). In the vocational context, these aspects of alternative forms of assessment may be of particular interest given the increasing trend towards teleworking (Mahler, 2012).

However, given the potential consequences resulting from faking, there is a pressing need to be able to detect and measure the behaviour across a number of test administration media. Any findings suggesting that faking differs depending on delivery mode could have critical implications for how tests are administered. For example, if a particular administration mode is susceptible to faking, then it may be prudent for assessors to avoid that mode of delivery. In addition, exploring faking across administration modes may also add to our understanding of faking behaviour.

While many measures have been shown to be equivalent when comparing online and pen-and-paper delivery modes (e.g., Bates & Cox, 2008; Carlbring et al., 2007; Casler et al., 2013; Williams & McCord, 2006), to date, research examining vocational faking as a function of administration is limited, with only one study comparing faking in online and pen-and-paper contexts. Grieve and de Groot (2011) examined faking across Internet and pen-and-paper administration modes. Participants were able to choose whether to complete the measures online or in pen-and-paper format. Participants first completed both measures honestly, completed distractor items, and then completed the HEXACO-60 (Ashton & Lee, 2009) under ‘fake good’ instructions (told to imagine they are applying for their “ideal job”). A between groups analysis found no significant difference in the faked scores across administration modes, and the effect sizes were small. The authors concluded that when an individual is faking, the mode of test administration has minimal influence. However, while providing promising initial insight into the susceptibility of online measures, there are limitations to this study that warrant additional consideration.

Firstly, the ‘fake good’ condition was vague in its use of an “ideal job” (Grieve & de Groot, 2011) as the target profile. It would seem possible, if not probable, that participants would have had varying conceptions of their ideal job, and would have responded differently depending on their job preferences. This would invariably lead to a variety of personality profiles depending on (for example) whether a participant wants to be a librarian or an advertising executive, as demonstrated by Furnham (1990). Thus, the use of a specific job in the faking good instructions would add greater experimental control. Secondly, participants in Grieve and de Groot's (2011) study were not randomly assigned to administration conditions, which may have resulted in systematic differences in responses as a function of modality preference. Finally, telephone administration was not considered in Grieve and de Groot's study. If telephone administration were to yield different results to online and pen-and-paper delivery modes when faking, this would add insight into the use of the telephone for psychological testing and e-assessment more broadly.

Existing research into the equivalence of telephone testing is limited. Knapp and Kirk (2003) explored the equivalence between other administration modes, with the inclusion of an automated touch-tone phone condition. Participants were randomly allocated to either a pen-and-paper group, an Internet group, or a touch-tone phone group and asked to answer highly sensitive questions (for example, ‘Have you ever had phone sex?’) and also rated how honestly they had answered the questionnaire. The results showed no significant difference between groups on any of the questionnaire items and no significant difference in how honestly participants rated their answers.

However, other research comparing telephone, Internet, and mail surveys has found that participants tended to give more extreme positive responses in telephone administration (Dillman et al., 2009). The effect of online and telephone administered surveys on responses regarding alcohol use and alcohol-related victimisation has also been investigated, with the finding that women in the online group answered in a less socially desirable way (Parks, Pardi, & Bradizza, 2006).

So, with limited research on the equivalence of telephone administration, it may be difficult to make inferences about the utility of this delivery mode in psychological testing. Importantly, a specific gap exists in terms of the inclusion of the telephone in faking equivalence research. Thus, it is currently unclear as to how telephonic administration mode might influence faking in job applicants.

The current study extended investigation of faking across administration modes by using random allocation (thereby mitigating self-selection concerns), by providing a specific job as the target profile (to strengthen the experimental manipulation) and by examining for the first time the influence of telephone mediated administration in addition to online and pen-and-paper testing.

Selection of the specific job to act as the target profile was predicated on including a job role that was broadly known to participants. Mindful of the need to facilitate interpretation of the results within existing job-specific vocational application personality data, the role of police officer was selected. As Detrick, Chibnall, and Call (2010) had investigated faking in police applicants, use of the police officer target profile allowed comparisons to be made in terms of test scores. The applicants in Detrick et al.’s (2010) study self-reported high on emotional stability, agreeableness, extraversion, and conscientiousness, and were able to significantly change their scores to such an extent as to alter their rank ordering. This knowledge allowed predictions to be made about the nature of faking good in the current study. Thus, it was hypothesised that participants would be able to fake good when instructed to complete a personality measure when applying for a job as a police recruit. Specifically, in line with Detrick et al., it was expected that participants would score significantly higher on conscientiousness, agreeableness, and extraversion and score lower on neuroticism.

However, the main focus of the current research was to examine the role of test administration mode. Consistent with Grieve and de Groot's (2011) approach, the effect of testing modality on faked scores was investigated by comparing faked scores on the personality measure as a function of administration mode. As the current research was exploratory in nature (by including telephone administration for the first time), explicit hypotheses regarding any effects of test administration were not generated. However, in order to effectively examine the effects administration modality, careful consideration of effect sizes was included: this approach was in line with Grieve and de Groot's procedure.

The aim of this research was, for the first time, to investigate faking good as a function of test administration mode (online, pen-and-paper, and telephone). In regards to faking good, participants were able to alter their scores on a five-factor personality scale when presenting themselves as an ideal police applicant. As hypothesised, participants reported significantly higher levels of conscientiousness, agreeableness, and extraversion, and lower levels of neuroticism when presenting themselves as an ideal police applicant. However, and in contrast to expectations, participants also reported significantly lower levels of openness when faking as an ideal police applicant.

In regards to the effect of administration mode, no hypotheses were developed: this research was exploratory in nature due to the inclusion of a telephone administration mode (in addition to online and pen-and-paper delivery) for the first time. There were no significant differences in scores as a function of administration mode when participants were faking as if they were an ideal police applicant. This finding was in line with the previous faking equivalence research by Grieve and de Groot (2011).

The use of an ideal police applicant as the ‘fake good’ target profile meant that the faked scores could be examined in the context of a specific personality profile. This strengthened the research design, as simply asking participants to fake for their ‘ideal job’. Interestingly, participants created a police applicant profile slightly different to the one reported in existing research (Detrick et al., 2010). It would seem that the schema participants generated about the ideal police applicant was close, but not quite a complete match, to the actual ideal police applicant profile. Previous research does indicate that when faking, individuals form their own concept or schema of the desirable profile (Jansen, König, Kleinmann, & Melchers, 2012).

The current study built on previous research (Grieve & de Groot, 2011) examining the equivalence of electronic assessment methods in a vocational context by including telephone administration and a specific applicant profile. Overall, the results support previous research indicating equivalence between online and pen-and-paper test administration (e.g., Bates & Cox, 2008; Carlbring et al., 2007; Casler et al., 2013; Williams & McCord, 2006), and between online, pen-and-paper, and telephone administration (Knapp & Kirk, 2003). When responding as the ideal police applicant, scores did not differ between administration modes on any of the personality scales. Very small effect sizes indicated that across administration modes, participants responded in a similar manner when asked to fake as an ideal police applicant.

These findings support previous research indicating that participants were able to fake good regardless of whether tests were administered online or in pen-and-paper format (Grieve & de Groot, 2011). These results indicate that the fakability of the personality scale is equivalent across pen-and-paper, telephone, and online administration. Specifically, it would seem that if individuals have an intention to fake, electronically mediated assessment does not facilitate faking.

More broadly, the current study made an important extension to existing research by demonstrating equivalence across administration modes when faking for vocational purposes on another personality measure, the IPIP version of the Big Five (Goldberg, 1999). It was suggested by Buchanan (2002) that all measures be assessed for equivalence, and thus the current research provides additional useful insight. Future vocational faking research should include other measures to examine faking across electronic media.

It was not known to what degree memory effects influenced participants’ faked scores in the current study, as original and faked measures were completed in the same testing session. Although distractor measures were included between original and faked administrations, the possibility remains that scores were impacted by memory effects. The same limitation was noted in Grieve and de Groot's (2011) study and, as recommended by those researchers, the use of a Solomon Four-group design (Braver & Braver, 1988) may have been one method to control for any practice effects; however this was beyond the scope of the current study, given its exploratory nature.

As is common in faking research, the current research employed an analogue design to facilitate maximum experimental control and reduce individual differences in faking motivation (Paulhus, Harms, Bruce, & Lysy, 2003). The difficulty in measuring applicant faking in non-analogue designs has been stated by researchers (Berry & Sackett, 2009). It may also be difficult to measure faking as it naturally occurs because fakers often do not admit to their behaviour (Taylor, Freuh, & Asmundson, 2007). Using a manipulation check was a strength of the current research, as it ensured that only those who had deliberately faked were included in the sample.

Nonetheless, it should be noted that participants in the current study were faking under instruction, not in a real vocational setting. Mindful that faking effect sizes tend to be larger in analogue vocational research than in real life vocational scenarios, a cautious approach to generalising the current findings would be prudent.

It follows that future research may choose to examine whether the current findings can be generalised to settings where the stakes are considerably higher. In addition, situational factors, such as including a warning against faking, can also impact upon intention to fake and faking behaviour (McFarland & Ryan, 2006). It is possible that responses to warnings, and therefore intention to fake, would differ with administration mode, and this is something that could be investigated in future research.

The use of telephone administration was a unique aspect of the current research. However, there is room to further test this delivery mode. In particular, the use of an automated voice to conduct questionnaires may be something that future researchers could investigate. It may also be costly for an organisation to have an employee conducting these standardised tests over the telephone, so an investigation into a more automated method may have useful practical implications. As noted, a single researcher conducted every telephone questionnaire in order to strengthen experimental control in the current study. However, research indicates that responses from male and female participants may indeed be influenced by the sex of the experimenter (Fisher, 2007). Still, in a real-life employment application process, it is unclear whether one person would perform every telephone call.

It is also noted that in the current study a significant difference emerged between students and non-students on the ‘openness’ personality domain when responding as the ideal police applicant. Previous research has indicated that students and non-students fake in a similar pattern (Grieve & de Groot, 2011; Grieve & Mahar, 2010), but nonetheless, a difference did emerge in the current study. This was the only area where students and non-students diverged, possibly due to a differential understanding of the role of a police officer. Students appeared to perceive the ideal police applicant as more intellectual and imaginative than their non-student peers, perhaps due to different experiences with police officers. In a real vocational environment, however, it should be noted that applicants would have the opportunity to thoroughly research the role and the desired personality attributes. Before completing a personality test, an applicant would be able to learn about the responsibilities of the position and if, for example, an organisation was seeking an ‘out-going, dynamic salesperson’, an applicant may infer that a high extraversion score would be desirable.

Despite the possibility of a differential understanding of the target profile between students and non-students, the ‘ideal police applicant’ was specifically chosen due to police officers being a visible part of the work force with recognisable traits. The use of this target profile sets the current study apart from previous faking research that has instead used the vague “ideal job” as the target profile (Grieve & de Groot, 2011).

A priori power considerations showed that there was sufficient power to find a significant result for medium sized effects (Keppel & Wickens, 2004), but not to find small effects. Having a larger sample would have improved power to find significant small effects. Still, according to Cohen (1992) it remains that the effect sizes were very small, and that a larger sample may have led to the power to find statistically significant effects that were not necessarily meaningful effects.

Finally, the current study instructed participants to fake good but, as acknowledged by Grieve and de Groot's (2011) study, an important distinction needs to be made between ability to fake and tendency to fake. Just because an individual can fake when instructed does not mean that they usually would fake under standard instructions. While Grieve and Elliott (2013) have recently addressed this issue and found no differences in intentions to fake in online versus face-to-face testing, it remains that the nature of faking intentions in telephone administration is yet to be considered. Further research into the tendency to fake may provide a valuable contribution to the field of faking research, especially as it relates to e-assessment.

The equivalence of faking across electronic administration modes has practical implications. In the vocational environment, there are clear benefits to online and telephone test administration. It has been noted that online testing enables testers to reach people in geographically diverse areas, is low-cost, and can be easily used to test a large number of people and to broaden the demographic profiles of respondents (Casler et al., 2013; Lewis et al., 2009; Ryan et al., 2013; Templer & Lange, 2008). Although in some cases the widespread use of telephone assessment may be impractical, the telephone also has benefits such as being able to reach people almost anywhere, being a familiar communication tool, and being inexpensive (Baca et al., 2007). Most recently, the need for ongoing evaluation of the role of technology in selection and assessment (Ryan & Ployhart, 2014) has been noted. If, as results from the current study indicate, online and telephone tests can be faked no more than pen-and-paper tests within a vocational context, then these delivery modes may be used with increased confidence. This may be relevant given trends towards teleworking (e.g., Mahler, 2012), and may be of particular relevance when assessing for employee promotion. Results from the current study combined with the noted benefits of e-assessment may provide encouraging support for online and/or telephone applicant or incumbent testing.

Faking behaviour can have vocational implications (Tett & Simonet, 2011), and given the increasing use of non-traditional methods in organisational assessment (Piotrowski & Armstrong, 2006), investigation of faking as a function of test administration mode is indicated. The current study aimed to examine this behaviour across electronic administration modes by including telephone administration for the first time and by incorporating a refined methodology.

The results indicated that individuals were able to alter their scores on a personality measure when instructed to fake as the ideal police applicant. The faked personality scores were equivalent across telephone, pen-and-paper, and online administration. Overall, results from this research demonstrate that if an individual intends to fake on a self-report test in a vocational testing scenario, the administration mode in which the test is delivered may be of little consequence. These findings have implications for testing, given the increase in electronically mediated assessment use.

The authors of this article declare no conflict of interest.