Analytical Aptitude Flashcards
Affinity diagramming
Data-sorting technique in which a group categorizes and
subcategorizes data until relationships are clearly drawn.
Delphi technique
Technique that progressively collects information from a
group of anonymous respondents.
Focus Group
Small group of invited persons (typically six to twelve)
who actively participate in a structured discussion, led by
a facilitator, for the purpose of eliciting their input.
Mean
Average score or value.
Median
Middle value in a range of values
Mind mapping
Data-sorting technique in which group members add
related ideas and indicate logical connections, eventually
grouping similar ideas.
Mode
Value that occurs most frequently in a set of data.
Nominal group technique (NGT)
Technique in which participants each suggest ideas
through a series of rounds and then discuss the items,
eliminate redundancies and irrelevancies, and agree on
the importance of the remaining items.
Qualitative data
Subjective evaluation of actions, feelings, or behaviors.
Quantitative data
Objective measurements that can be verified and used in
statistical analysis.
Ratio analysis
Comparing the sizes of two variables to produce an
index or percentage; commonly used to analyze financial
statements.
Regression analysis
Statistical method used to determine whether a
relationship exists between variables and the strength of
the relationship.
Reliability
Extent to which a measurement instrument provides
consistent results.
Root-cause analysis
Type of analysis that starts with a result and then works
backward to identify fundamental cause.
Scenario/what-if analysis
Statistical method used to test the possible effects
of altering the details of a strategy to see if the likely
outcome can be improved.
Standard deviation
Distance of any data point from the center of a
distribution when data is distributed in a “normal” or
expected pattern.
Trend analysis
Statistical method that examines data from different
points in time to determine if a variance is an isolated
event or if it is part of a longer trend.
Unweighted mean
Raw average of data that gives equal weight to all
values, with no regard for other factors.
Validity
Extent to which a measurement instrument measures
what it is intended to measure.
Variance analysis
Statistical method for identifying the degree of difference
between planned and actual performance or outcomes.
Weighted mean
Average of data that adds factors to reflect the
importance of different values.
What is a practical way to develop the credibility of HR staff as data advocates?
Hire HR staff with more advanced degrees.
Subscribe to major HR and organizational psychology journals.
Send HR representatives to meetings of other functions to discuss HR’s role.
Ensure that the results of all HR activities are measured.
Ensure that the results of all HR activities are measured
The best way to establish HR as a data advocate is to be prepared to discuss the effectiveness of HR programs based on program results. This helps create a culture in which evidence is expected and used to make decisions.
What are the steps of Evidence Based Decision Making
Ask - when faced with a problem, translate the situation into a question that can then be answered through information gathering.
Acquire - gather information from varied sources
Appraise - Determine whether the evidence gathered is relevant, valid, reliable, accurate, complete, and unbiased.
Aggregate - Combine and organize the data to prepare it for analysis. Determine the priority to be given to different types of information
Apply - See the logical connections within the data and with the issue
Assess - Monitor the solution that has been implemented and objectively measure the extend to which the objectives have been attained.
What is data advocacy?
Developing and inquiring mindset, learning what data drives the business adn where it can be found, developing partnerships across the organization to promote EBDM, and modeling the EBDM to teh entire organization through the decisions HR makes in the plans of action it undertakes
What is Data gathering?
Know what constitutes sufficient, credible, and objective evidence and being able to find it.
What is data analysis?
Being able to organize data so that it reveals patterns and to analyze it to detect logical relationships
What is EBDM
Evidence based decision making. Being able to apply the results of data gathering and analysis to make better business decisions.
Management has requested that HR conduct a focus group to better understand the results of a recent compensation survey. Which is the most important factor HR will want to consider when forming the focus groups?
Participants should include only subject matter experts to ensure that the time is well spent.
Focus group objectives should be kept general to encourage the group to move in its own direction.
The focus group facilitator should be well known to participants, preferably one of their managers.
Members should be a representative sample of the employee population.
Members should be a representative sample of the employee population
Which feature should HR incorporate into a pre-employment test for a position that requires a high degree of accuracy, with any mistakes by the incumbent being dangerous?
Fairness evidence
High validity
Environmental factors
High reliability
High validity
Validity indicates that there is linkage between test performance and job performance-that the test is measuring what it is intended to measure. A selection tool that offers high validity is important, because hiring an unqualified worker for this position would present a risk and the potential for a costly situation.
What best describes the appearance of a distribution curve in a data set with a low standard deviation (SD)?
Short and tapered
High and narrow
Flat and long
Wide and bell-shaped
High and narrow
In a low SD data curve, data is grouped more tightly around a center value, so the distribution curve is high and narrow.
Which best describes the mode in a set of data?
Middle point of values
Range of values
Average of numbers
Value appearing most often
Value appearing most often
Which tool would be best for analyzing and presenting data about the relationship between years of education and amount of income?
Scatter diagram
Control chart
Histogram
Cause-and-effect diagram
Scatter diagram
A scatter diagram shows possible relationships between two variables. For example, if an HR professional wants to find out if there is a relationship between years of education and amount of income, he or she could create a scatter diagram with the years of education placed on one axis and the amount of income on the other.
An HR strategic planning team wants to see what the effects on payroll will be if management realigns production capacity using different strategies. What analytical tool should HR use?
Trend analysis
Scenario analysis
Root cause analysis
Variance analysis
Scenario Analysis
Scenario analysis is the appropriate tool here because it projects outcomes under different conditions (in this case, the production options).
How can someone become an HR data advocate?
Develop a questioning mind - Ask questions, why do we do it this way, why is this happening, what is the evidence for thinking like that?
Build fluency in the scientific literature for HR
Gather data on a continuous basis about the efficacy and efficiency of legacy systems and stakeholder interests
Use evidence when communicating with stakeholders
Institutionalize the competency in the HR function - at regular meetings, designated members research and report on new or important information.
Quantitative Data
Consists of objective measurements that can be verified and used in statistical analysis
Qualitative data
involves a subjective evaluation of actions, feelings, or behaviors
Measurements can be made by a third party observer
They can also be self-assessments
What questions should be considered before accepting data in a print or online publication?
Does the source have authority
What are the sources possible biases?
Are the sources for data used in a publication clearly cited and are those sources reliable and accurate?
Are the facts relevant?
Is that data current?
If that data is being offered as proof of an argument, is the argument itself sound and are its deductions from the data logical?
What purposes can interviews be used for?
Sometimes they are useful in identifying topics that can be explored in focus groups or surveys
They may focus on specific, high value employees and uncover targeted retention information
Organization heroes, people who are recognized and respected throughout the organization, may add a cultural perspective
Individual interviews offer the opportunity for follow-up questions
What are the advantages of interviews?
Safer, confidential environment may generate significant information
Comments can suggest direction for further group research.
What are the challenges of interviews?
Can be time-sensitive
Requires strong relationship-building skills
Requires vigilance to avoid bias from influencing questions and interpretation of answers.
How long do focus groups typically last
1 to 3 hours
What are some advantages of focus groups
Provides a format that is flexible and relatively comfortable for discussion
Allows for group brainstorming, decision making, and prioritization
Can provide group consensus
Enables HR to learn about employee needs, attitudes, and opinions in a direct format
Gives employees direct input
What are some challenges of focus groups?
Tends to foster group think conformity
May be difficult to control; can become a forum where participants can go off tangent
Generally don’t allow for deep discussions, depending on time constraints and the number of participants
Can provide skewed or biased results if participants are not representative
What things should be considered when planning a focus group?
The importance of planning
The context in which a focus group might occur
The importance of a group facilitator
The importance of the recorder
What is mind mapping?
Mind mapping begins a discussion with core ideas
Group members and related ideas and indicate logical connections, eventually grouping similar ideas.
What is Nominal Group Technique?
This technique proceeds through rounds in which participants each suggest ideas
The rounds continue until no further ideas are proposed
What is the Delphi technique
This technique progressively collects information from a group on a pre-selected issue
The first respondent proposes information and the next respondent add something different, and so on until a list is compiled
Respondents are anonymous
In the second round, the researcher circulates the list and asks each respondent in turn to refine previous ideas, to comment on each idea’s strengths and weaknesses for addressing the issue, and to identify new ideas.
What are the challenges of doing surveys
Obtaining a valid sample - making sure the survey pool is representative of the entire group
Designing the survey with analysis in mind - Questions should be asked ina way that makes compiling and comparing responses easier
Asking the right questions - to understand an entire organization, experts often turn to questions based on organizational models
Difficult to follow up on dta from anonymous sources
Relies on self-reporting which can be biased
Requires time and statistical expertise to assess sample and compile and analyze data
What are the advantages of surveys/questionnaires?
Efficient way to gather a lot of data from a large and dispersed group
Easier to quantify data for analysis and reporting
What are the advantages of observation to gather information?
Provides firsthand and immediate data rather than self-report data, which can be affected by memory and selectivity
Is time-efficient for subjects
Can strengthen the HR professionals understanding of the work at hand and the culture of the workplace.
What are the challenges of observation to gather information?
Requires skill to be unseen. When the group is very aware of the observer, the data becomes less reliable.
Requires vigilance to remove personal bias from observations
Requires experience to note significant behaviors
Observations may not be representative of the entire body of data.
What are the advantages of using existing data as a source of information?
Eliminates the effects of observation and involvement and possible bias of facilitator/interviewer/observer
Rich, multi-perspective source of data
Can include information from the organization itself, from public information sources, or from industry/professional associations
What are the challenges of using existing data as a source of information?
Can be time-intensive
Requires experience to extract key data
May require ingenuity to find datar
Reliability of data
Reliability reflects the ability of a data-gathering instrument or tool, such as a survey or a rater’s observation or a physical measurement, to provide results that are consistent.
Validity of data
Validity is the ability of an instrument to measure what it is intended to measure
What two questions does validation answer?
What does the instrument measure?
How well does the instrument measure it?
Statistical Sampling
Sampling is often used when the population to be analyzed is very large or when data cannot be obtained from the entire population
The sample must be representative
Samples of data must also be sufficiently large to include all the possible variations within the population being sampled
When are errors introduced into a statistical study?
When incorrect data is used
A study’s design includes, intentionally or unintentionally, different types of biases that affect outcomes
What are the different types of biases that affect outcomes in a statistical study?
Sampling - a sample may not represent the general population
Selection - selection bias can occur in a controlled study when participants are not randomly assigned to control and experimental groups
Response - this is the inverse of selection bias
Performance - participants in a controlled study behave different because they are being studied
Measurement - Raters are measuring incorrectly, either unintentionally or intentionally
Cleansing Data
Cleansing data is connected to validation and identifying bias, as these processes assess how useful and correct the data is.
Data cleansing is not an ad hoc process and should be done on regular basis
Frequency Distribution
a mathematical function showing the number of instances in which a variable takes each of its possible values, so data is sorted into groups such as years of employment
This allows analysts to understand teh distribution of the data they are working with, whether the data is focused in a normal pattern around a central value or is more broadly or narrowly dispersed over the data range.
Analytics can expose the important connections and patterns and data to make better workforce decisions because they:
Consider the past and present and forecast the future
Connect multiple data items
Provide computational analysis of data or statistics
Provide visual outputs of patterns and trends
Provide insides that can drive strategy
Pie Chart
Description: Graphically depicts as portions or slices of a circle the constituents that compromise 100% of a data group. Textual data information can be included in callouts or in an attached table for more precise communication.
Application: To present a high-level impression of the data distribution as a percentage of aw hole - for example, the workforce. This information may be helpful context for a deeper discussion
Histogram
Description: Graphically depicts the sorting of data into groups arranged in the shape of a statistical distribution, showing a central tendency and dispersion around that tendency. This apperas as columns of varying heights or lengths. Histograms can include a comparative referent, such as a target or range of values. They can also be designed to show comparisons over time (usually through multiple columns for each category).
Application: To sort data and to support rapid comparison of categories of data.
Trend Diagram
Description: Plots data points on two axes. The horizontal axis usually represents time, while the vertical axis represents volume.
Application: Can be used to test for presence of cycles or developing trends.
Pareto Chart
Description: Applies the Pareto Principle of 80/20 in the form of a histogram. Categories of data are ranked, usually from left to right along the x axis, according to size. The y axis shows reference ranges. A cumulative percentage line plots the category contributions to the whole, making it easier to identify the 80/20 cut.
Application: Distinguishes between the vital few categories that contribute most of the issues and the trivial many categories of infrequent occurrence to support more-focused quality improvement activities.
Scatter Diagram
Description: Plots data points against two variables that form the chart’s x and y axes. Each axis is scaled. The pattern formed by the plotted data describes the correlation between the two variables:
The tightness of clustering indicates the probably strength of the correlation A line rising from the lower left to the upper right quadrant indicates a positive correlation A line falling from the upper left to the lower right quadrant indicates a negative correlation
Application: Can be used to test possible causal relationships and narrow focus on subsequent tests
