Introduction to I/O Psychology Flashcards
What are the 3 main areas of research & practice in I/O psychology?
Personnel psychology, organizational psychology, and engineering psychology
What is Personnel Psychology concerned with?
Evaluating, selecting, & training workers
What are some topics included in Personnel Psychology?
Job analysis, performance appraisal, personnel selection, training, & career counseling
On what does Organizational Psychology focus?
Individual and group processes within organizations and concerned with factors that affect outcomes like job satisfaction, motivation, work effectiveness, and quality of work life
What are some topics in the area of Organizational Psychology?
Leadership style, decision-making, and organizational development
Engineering Psychology is also called what?
Human factors psychology and ergonomics
What does Engineering Psychology deal with?
Relationships between workers and work context
What are some issues of interest in Engineering Psychology?
Work schedules, job burnout, & accidents
What is the purpose of job analysis?
Describe the precise requirements of a job
What kind of information can job analysis produce?
Information that is job-oriented (focus on task requirements of the job), worker-oriented (identify the knowledge, skills, abilities, and personal characteristics required for successful job performance), or a combination of the two
What are a few methods of job analysis?
Interviews, questionnaires (like the Position Analysis Questionnaire), direct observation, and work diaries
What is the purpose of evaluations of employee performance?
To assist in decision-making about raises & bonuses, promotions & dismissals, and provide employees with feedback regarding their performance
What are 2 types of measures of job performance?
Objective (easily quantifiable data like dollar amount on sales and number of units produced) or subjective (ratings by supervisors, peers, or employees themselves)
Which type of job performance measure is affected by rater biases? Name a few rater biases.
Subjective; halo effect, central tendency bias, leniency bias, strictness bias, and contrast bias
What are some examples of subjective rating methods for job performance?
Personnel comparison systems, critical incidents, behaviorally anchored rating scales, behavioral-observation scales, and forced-choice checklists
What are some commonly used personnel selection techniques?
Work samples, interviews, biographical inventories, assessment centers, and standardized tests
Which techniques for personnel selection have shown the highest validity across different jobs?
Cognitive ability tests and job knowledge tests
Which technique for personnel selection has the lowest validity?
Interest tests
What must be considered when selecting or evaluating personnel?
Legal issues, especially those set forth in EEOC’s Uniform Guidelines
What is adverse impact?
When minority group members are hired at a substantially lower rate than majority group members.
What are 2 causes of adverse impact?
Differential validity and unfairness
What are factors that determine the usefulness of a selection test?
Validity and reliability (obviously) and it should increase decision-making capacity (have incremental validity) and be cost effective
What is a measure’s incremental validity affected by?
The selection ratio (percentage of employees to be hired), the base rate (proportion of current employees considered successful), & measure’s validity coefficient.
How can incremental validity be estimated?
By subtracting the base rate from the positive hit rate (proportion of employees hired with the new selection test who are successful on the job)
What is the first step in developing a training program?
Needs analysis
What are the 3 components of a needs analysis?
Organization analysis, task analysis, & person analysis
What is the second step in developing a training program?
Program design which involves choosing appropriate training program format (e.g., on-the-job training, vestibule training, classroom training, programmed instruction, etc.)
What is the final step in developing a training program?
Program evaluation in which effectiveness of training program is assessed
What are the 2 types of program evaluations?
Formative (takes place as program is being developed/formed) and summative (conducted after program is complete)
What kinds of tests are used in career counseling?
Achievement tests, aptitude tests, & interest inventories
What is the difference between aptitude tests and achievement tests?
Aptitude tests measure person’s potential for learning; Achievement tests measure how much content a person has mastered in a particular content domain
The distinction between aptitude and achievement tests is not all that clear, so what term do some experts recommend using to refer to both?
“Ability tests”
On what 2 things do theories related to career choices focus?
Either the personality variables that affect career decisions or on stages of career development
What is an example of theory that focuses on personality variables related to career choices?
Holland’s Personality & Environmental Typology
What is an example of a theory that focuses on stages of career development?
Super’s Career & Life Development Theory
What are some reasons why job analyses are performed?
Developing & evaluating selection instruments, identifying measures of job performance, & assisting in development of training programs
What are a few examples of job-oriented techniques in job analysis?
Lifting, repairing, installing
What are a few examples of worker-oriented techniques in job analysis?
High school education, manual dexterity, 20/20 vision, adaptability
What is the name of one of the most commonly used questionnaires in job analysis?
PAQ – Position Analysis Questionnaire; 194 job elements organized into 6 divisions, each representing different fact of job behavior
What are the 6 divisions in the PAQ?
Information input, mental processes, work output, relationships with other persons, job context, and other job characteristics
Performance evaluation can also be called (2 different names)?
Performance appraisal or merit rating
What is the most common reason for undertaking Performance Evaluations?
To determine whether person is entitled to a raise or bonus (can also be used to provide workers with feedback about their performance and to help make decisions related to promotions, placement, transfers, or dismissals)
What is another name for measures used to evaluate employee job performance?
Criterion measures
How can criterion measures be classified (2 ways)?
Objective or subjective
What is a limitation of objective measures?
They do not measure many important facets of job performance, such as worker’s motivation or ability to cooperate with or supervise others; Objective data is also limited by situational factors, like equipment difficulties, number of coworkers, the economy, etc, and may not be useful for evaluating performance of complex jobs
What are subjective measures useful for assessing?
Complex, less concrete aspects of job performance, like motivation, ability to supervise, problem-solving ability, and effectiveness when working with others
What are some disadvantages of subjective measures?
Raters are not always motivated to provide accurate ratings or don’t understand the rating scale; subjective measures are also affected by rater biases which limit reliability and validity
Who makes ratings of job performance in organizations?
Supervisors; however, they can also be made by employee him/herself, peers, and other familiar with employee’s performance
Are peer ratings valid as predictors of job performance as per research in that area?
Yes, especially for predicting supervisor ratings, promotions, and training success
What is 360 degree performance measures?
These incorporate ratings from multiple raters like supervisors, peers, subordinates, and customers.
What are 360 degree measures designed to do?
To provide info that is useful for feedback to managers for purpose of management development
What are some subjective rating techniques?
Personnel Comparison Systems, Critical Incidents, Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales, Behavioral-Observation Scales, and Forced Choice Checklists
Paired Comparison Systems (PCS)
Rating employee by comparing to other employees; 3 types are rank-ordered system, paired comparison system, and forced distribution system
Rank-ordered system
Rater ranks employees from best to worst
Paired comparison system
Each employee compared with every other employee on each job behavior; this gets impractical with large number of employees
Forced distribution system
Rater categorizes employees according to a predetermined distribution, e.g., top 10%, next 25%, middle 30%, next 25%, and bottom 10%
What is an advantage to Personnel Comparison System?
Reduces effects of certain rater biases, e.g., central tendency, leniency, strictness
Critical Incidents
Descriptions of specific job behaviors associated with very good and very poor performance
Original “critical incident method”
Supervisors observed employees while they worked and kept tally of good and poor job behaviors for each employee
Change to original critical incident method =
Critical incidents incorporated into Likert-type scales so each point on scale “anchored” with description of specific job bx
Examples of positive and a negative critical incident =
Positive = discusses problems with employees effectively; Negative = Is late for work at least 2x a week
Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS)
Employees rated on several dimensions of job performance and for each dimension, a set of “behavioral anchors” (critical incidents) is created, with each anchor tied to Likert-type scale number
Development of BARS
Involves several steps and multiple contributors
Advantages and disadvantages to BARS
Advantages = produces info that is useful for employee feedback and may improve rater accuracy d/t format and development process; Disadvantage = time-consuming to construct and usually very job specific
Behavioral-Observation Scales (BOS)
Similar to BARS in terms of advantages and disadvantages; however, unlike BARS, rater indicates how often employee performs each critical incident (i.e., always, sometimes, never) rather than raters selecting critical incident for each job dimension that best describes employee’s bx
Forced-Choice Checklists (FCCL)
Presents rater with series of statements grouped so statements are similar in terms of social desirability and ability to distinguish between successful and unsuccessful job performance; ideally, format helps reduce social desirability and other rater biases
