Industrial Psych Exam One (Chpts. 1-6)

Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT)

Document that includes job analysis and occupational information used to match applicants with job openings; a major purpose of the DOT was, and still is, for use in occupational counseling.; replaced by the O*NET

dishonesty

Employee theft of goods and theft of time (arriving late, leaving early, taking unnecessary sick days) or dishonest communications with customers, co-workers, or management.

halo error

Error that occurs when a rater assigns the same rating to an employee on a series of dimensions, creating a halo or aura that surrounds all of the ratings, causing them to be similar.

judgmental measures

Evaluation made of the effectiveness of an individual's work behavior; judgment most often made by supervisors in the context of a performance evaluation.

effectiveness

Evaluation of the results of performance; often controlled by factors beyond the actions of an individual

compensable factors

Factors in a job evaluation system that are given points that are later linked to compensation for various jobs within the organization; factors usually include skills, responsibility, effort, and working conditions

Americans with Disabilities Act

Federal legislation enacted in 1990 requiring employers to give applicants and employees with disabilities the same consideration as other applicants and employees, and to make certain adaptations in the work environment to accommodate disabilities.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Federal legislation that prohibits discrimination in hiring, firing, compensation, apprenticeships, training, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin which define what are known as protected groups. Prohibits not only intentional discrimination but also practices that have the unintentional effect of discrimination against individuals of protected groups.

Equal Pay Act of 1963

Federal legislation that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in the payment of wages or benefits, where men and women perform work of similar skill, effort, and responsibility for the same employer under similar working conditions.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Federal legislation that prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, which define what are known as protected groups. Prohibits not only intentional discrimination but also practices that have the unintentional effect of discriminating against individuals because of their race, color, national origin, religion, or sex.

personnel psychology

Field of psychology that addresses issues such as recruitment, selection, training, performance appraisal, promotion, transfer, and termination. The goal is to find or fit the best person to the job.

duties

Groups of similar tasks; each duty involves a segment of work directed at one of the general goals of a job

80 percent or 4/5ths rule

Guideline for assessing whether there is evidence of adverse impact; if it can be shown that a protected group received less than 80 percent of the desirable outcomes (e.g., job offers, promotions) received by a majority group, the plaintiffs can claim to have met the burden of demonstrating adverse impact.

selection ratio (SR)

Index ranging from 0 to 1 that reflects the ratio of positions to applicants; calculated by dividing the number of positions available by the number of applicants

KSAOs

Individual attributes of knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics that are required to successfully perform job tasks

biodata

Information collected on an application blank or in a standardized test that includes questions about previous jobs, education, specialized training, and personal history; also known as biographical data.

mental test

Instrument designed to measure a subject's ability to reason, plan, and solve problems; an intelligence test.

collectivist culture

A culture that values the group more than the individual.

individualist culture

A culture that values the individual more than the group.

scientist-practitioner model

A model that uses scientific tools and research in the practice of I-O psychology.

scientific management

A movement based on principles developed by Frederick W. Taylor, who suggested that there was one best and most efficient way to perform various jobs.

cognitive task analysis

A process that consists of methods for decomposing job and task performance into discrete, measurable units, with special emphasis on eliciting mental processes and knowledge content

culture

A system in which individuals share meanings and common ways of viewing events and objects

Big Five

A taxonomy of five personality factors; the Five-Factor Model (FFM); composed of conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, emotional stability and openness to experiences (OCEAN)

overt integrity test

A test asks questions directly about past honesty behavior (stealing, etc.) as well as attitudes toward various behaviors such as employee theft.

knowledge test

A test that assesses the extent to which individuals understand course or training materials; also administered for licensing and certification purposes.

group test

A test that can be administered to large groups of individuals; often valuable in reducing the costs (both in time and money) of testing many applicants.

screen-in test

A test used to add information about the positive attributes of a candidate that might predict outstanding performance; tests of normal personality are examples of screen-in tests in the employment setting.

screen-out test

A test used to eliminate candidates who are clearly unsuitable for employment; tests of psychopathology are examples of screen-out tests in the employment setting.

power test

A test with no rigid time limits; enough time is given for a majority of the test takers to complete all of the test items.; typically harder than speed tests

speed test

A test with rigid and demanding time limits; most test takers will be unable to finish the test in the allotted time.

computer adaptive testing (CAT)

A type of testing that presents a test taker with a few items that cover the range of difficulty of the test, identifies a test taker's approximate level of ability, and then asks only questions to further refine the test taker's position within that ability level.

Stanford-Binet Test

A well-known intelligence test designed for testing one individual at a time. Originally developed by Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon in 1905, the Binet-Simon test was updated starting in 1916 by Lewis Terman and colleagues at Stanford University, which led to the test's current name.

Lordstown syndrome

Act of sabotage named after a General Motors plant plagued with acts of sabotage

sabotage

Acts that damage, disrupt, or subvert the organization's operations for personal purposes of the saboteur by creating unfavorable publicity, damage to property, destruction of working relationships, or harming of employees or customers.

layoff

Job loss due to employer downsizing or reductions in force; often comes without warning or with a generic warning that the workforce will be reduced.

Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP)

An association to which many IO psychologists, both practitioners and researchers, belong. Designated as Division 14 of the American Psychological Association (APA).

emotion

An effect or feeling, often experienced and displayed in reaction to an event or thought and accompanied by physiological changes in various systems of the body.

unstructured interview

An interview format that includes questions that may vary by candidate and that allows the candidate to answer in any form he or she prefers.

structured interview

Assessment procedure that consists of very specific questions asked of each candidate; includes tightly crafted scoring schemes with detailed outlines for the interviewer with respect to assigning ratings or scores based on interview performance.

revery obsession

Australian psychologist Elton Mayo proposed that this mental state resulted from the mind-numbing, repetitive, and difficult work that characterized U.S. factories in the early 20th century, causing factory workers to be unhappy, prone to resist management attempts to increase productivity, and sympathetic to labor unions.

determinants of performance

Basic building blocks or causes of performance, which are declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, and motivation

statistical artifacts

Characteristics (small sample size, unreliable measures, etc.) of a particular study that distort the observed results. Researchers can correct for artifacts to arrive at a statistic that represents the "true" relationship between the variables of interest.

Occupational Information Network (O*NET)

Collection of electronic databases, based on well-developed taxonomies, that has updated and replaced the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT)

situational judgement test

Commonly a paper and pencil test that presents the candidate with a written scenario and asks the candidate to choose the best response from a series of alternatives

performance components

Components that may appear in different jobs and result from the determinants of performance; John Campbell and colleagues identified eight performance components, some or all of which can be found in every job.

Hofstede's Theory

Culture is more complex than a single continuum. There are five basic factors on which cultures can be distinguished -- individualism/collectivism, power distance, masculinity/femininity, and long term vs. short term orientation.

true positive

Decision in which an applicant was accepted and performed successfully; decision is true because of the correct prediction that the applicant would be a good performer and positive because the applicant was hired

true negative

Decision in which an applicant was rejected and would have performed poorly if he or she were hired; decision is true because of the correct prediction that the applicant would not be a good performer and negative because the applicant was not hired

false negative

Decision in which an applicant was rejected but would have performed adequately or successfully; decision is false because of the incorrect prediction that the applicant would not perform successfully and negative because the applicant was not hired

emotional intelligence quotient (EQ)

Parallels the notion of intelligence quotient (IQ); a score on a test of emotional intelligence.

perceptual-motor abilities

Physical attributes that combine the senses (e.g., seeing, hearing, smell) and motion (e.g., coordination, dexterity).

psychomotor abilities

Physical functions of movement, associated with coordination, dexterity, and reaction time; also called motor or sensorimotor abilities.

Human Resources management (HRM)

Practices such as recruitment, selection, retention, training, and development of people (human resources) in order to achieve individual and organizational goals.

routing test

Preliminary test used in computer adaptive testing that identifies a test taker's approximate level of ability before providing additional questions to refine the test taker's position within that ability level.

cross-validation

Process used with multiple regression techniques in which a regression equation developed on a first sample is tested on a second sample to determine if it still fits well; usually carried out with an incumbent sample, and the cross-validated results are used to weight the predictor scores of an applicant sample

construct

Psychological concept or characteristic that a predictor is intended to measure; examples are intelligence, personality, and leadership.

adverse impact ratio

Ratio obtained by dividing the selection ratio of the protected group by the selection ratio of the majority group; if this ratio is lower than 80 percent, there is evidence of adverse impact.

qualitative methods

Rely on observations, interviews, case studies, and analysis of diaries or written documents and produce flow diagrams and narrative descriptions of events or processes.

Hawthorne Studies

Research done at the Hawthorne, Illinois, plant of the Western Electric Company that began as attempts to increase productivity by manipulating lighting, rest breaks, and work hours. This research showed the important role that workers' attitudes played in productivity.

differential psychology

Scientific study of differences between or among two or more people

cut score

Specified point in a distribution of scores below which candidates are rejected; also known as a cutoff score.

measure of central tendency

Statistic that indicates where the center of a distribution is located. Mean, median, and mode are measures of central tendency.

multiple correlation coefficient

Statistic that represents the overall linear association between several variables (e.g., cognitive ability, personality, experience) on the one hand and a single variable (e.g., job performance) on the other hand.

regression line

Straight line that best "fits" the scatterplot and describes the relationship between the variables in the graph; can also be presented as an equation that specifies where the line intersects the vertical axis and what the angle or slope of the line is.

"West versus the Rest" mentality

Tendency for researchers to develop theories relevant to U.S. situations, with less concern given to their applicability in other countries.

American Psychological Association (APA)

The major professional organization for psychologists of all kinds in the United States.

functional personality at work

The way that an individual behaves, handles emotions, and accomplishes tasks in a work setting; a combination of Big Five factors.

frame-of-reference training

Training based on the assumption that a rater needs a context or "frame" for providing a rating

psychometric training

Training that makes raters aware of common rating errors (central tendency, leniency/severity, and halo) in the hope that this will reduce the likelihood of errors.

adverse impact

Type of discrimination that acknowledges the employer may not have intended to discriminate against a plaintiff, but an employer practice did have an adverse impact on the group to which the plaintiff belongs

walk-through testing

Type of measurement that requires an employee to describe to an interviewer in detail how to complete a task or job-related behavior; employee may literally walk through the facility (e.g., a nuclear power plant), answering questions as he or she actually sees the displays or controls in question.

ecology model

Underlying model for life history biodata instruments. Proposes that the events that make up a person's history represent choices made by the individual to interact with his or her environment. These choices can signal abilities, interests, and personality characteristics.

statistical control

Using statistical techniques to control for the influence of certain variables. Such control allows researchers to concentrate exclusively on the primary relationships of interest.

criterion-related validity

Validity approach that is demonstrated by correlating a test score with a performance measure; improves researcher's confidence in the inference that people with higher test scores have higher performance. The approach involves actually gathering data and computing a correlation coefficient.

Hawthorne Effect

a change in behavior or attitudes that was the simple result of increased attention

weighted checklist

a checklist that includes items that have values or weights assigned to them that are derived from the expert judgments of incumbents and supervisors of the position in question

knowledge

a collection of specific and interrelated facts and information about a particular topical area

Vertical Culture

a culture that accepts and depends upon distances between individuals

Horizontal Culture

a culture that minimizes distances between individuals

content-related validation design

a design that demonstrates that the content of the selection procedure represents an adequate sample of important work behaviors and activities and/or worker KSAOs defined by the job analysis

dependability

a facet of conscientiousness consisting of being disciplined, well organized, respectful of laws and regulations, honest, trustworthy, and accepting of authority

achievement

a facet of conscientiousness consisting of hard work, persistence, and the desire to do good work

Standard Deviation

a measure of variability that describes an average distance of every score from the mean

people skills

a nontechnical term that includes negotiating skills, communication skills, and conflict resolution skills

emotional intelligence

a proposed kind of intelligence focused on people's awareness of their own and others' emotions

criterion contamination

a situation that occurs when an actual criterion includes information unrelated to the behavior one is trying to measure

criterion deficiency

a situation that occurs when an actual criterion is missing information that is part of the behavior one is trying to measure

generalizability theory

a sophisticated approach to the question of reliability that simultaneously considers all types of error in reliability estimates

individual test

a test given only on an individual basis

cognitive ability test

a test that allows individuals to demonstrate what they know, perceive, remember, understand, or can work with mentally; includes problem identification, problem-solving tasks, perceptual skills, the development or evaluation of ideas, and remembering what one has learned through general experience or specific training

personality-based integrity test

a test that infers honesty and integrity from questions dealing with broad constructs such as conscientiousness, reliability, and social responsibility and awareness

performance test

a test that requires the individual to make a response by manipulating a particular physical object or piece of equipment

equivalent forms reliability

a type of reliability calculated by correlating measurements from a sample of individuals who complete two different forms of the same test

test-retest reliability

a type of reliability calculated by correlating measurements taken at time 1 with measurements taken at time 2

Telecommuting

accomplishing work tasks from a distant location using electronic communication media

tacit knowledge

action-oriented, goal-directed knowledge, acquired without direct help from others; colloquially called street smarts

actual criterion

actual measure of job performance obtained

situational interview

an assessment procedure in which the interviewee is asked to describe in specific and behavioral detail how he or she would respond to a hypothetical situation

personality

an individual's behavioral and emotional characteristics, generally found to be stable over time and in a variety of circumstances; and individual's habitual way of responding

criterion

an outcome variable that describes important aspects or demands of the job; the variable that we predict when evaluating the validity of a predictor

triangulation

approach in which researchers seek converging information from different sources

critical incident technique

approach in which subject matter experts are asked to identify critical aspects of behavior or performance in a particular job that led to success or failure

task-oriented job analysis

approach that begins with a statement of the actual tasks as well as what is accomplished by those tasks

Worker-oriented job analysis

approach that focuses on the attributes of the worker necessary to accomplish the tasks

think-aloud protocol

approach used by cognitive psychologists to investigate the thought processes of experts who achieve high levels of performance; an expert performer describes in words the thought process that he or she uses to accomplish a task

work sample test

assessment procedure that measures job skills by taking samples of behavior under realistic job-like conditions

measurement

assigning numbers to characteristics of individuals or objects according to rules

organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)

behavior that goes beyond what is expected

generalized compliance

behavior that is helpful to the broader organization, such as upholding company rules

physical abilities

bodily powers such as muscular strength, flexibility, and stamina

experimental control

characteristic of research in which possible confounding influences that might make results less reliable or harder to interpret are eliminated; often easier to establish in laboratory studies than in field studies

disinterestedness

characteristic of scientists who should be objective and uninfluenced by biases or prejudices when conducting research

job ladder or job family

cluster of positions that are similar in terms of the human attributes needed to be successful in those positions or in terms of the tasks that are carried out

assessment center

collection of procedures for evaluation that is administered to groups of individuals; assessments are typically performed by multiple assessors

test battery

collection of tests that usually assess a variety of different attributes

norming

comparing a test score to other relevant test scores

motivation (M)

concerns the conditions responsible for variations in intensity, persistence, quality, and direction of ongoing behavior

reliability

consistency or stability of a measure

validity coefficient

correlation coefficient between a test score (predictor) and a performance measure (criterion)

predictive validity design

criterion-related validity design in which there is a time lag between collection of the test data and the criterion data

concurrent validity design

criterion-related validity design in which there is no time lag between gathering the test scores and the performance data. The disadvantage to this method is that we have no information about those who are not employed by the organization.

false positive

decision in which an application was accepted bu performed poorly; decision is false because of the incorrect prediction that the applicant would perform successfully and positive because the applicant was hired

staffing decisions

decisions associated with recruiting, selecting, promoting, and separating employees

social desirability

desire to be appealing to others

non-experimental design

does not include any "treatment" or assignment to different conditions. These can be observational design or survey design studies.

Introspection

early scientific method in which the participant was also the experimenter, recording his or her experiences in completing an experimental task; considered very subjective by modern standards

subject matter export (SME)

employee (incumbent) who provides information about a job in a job analysis interview or survey

central tendency error

error in which raters choose a middle point on the scale to describe performance, even though a more extreme point might better describe the employee

leniency error

error that occurs with raters who are unusually easy in their ratings

severity error

error that occurs with raters who are unusually harsh in their ratings

judgmental perfomance measure

evaluation made on the effectiveness of an individual's work behavior, most often by supervisors in the context of a yearly performance evaluation

critical incidents

examples of behavior that appear "critical" in determining whether performance would be good, average, or poor in specific performance areas

procedural knowledge

familiarity with a procedure or process; knowing "how"

organizational psychology

field of psychology that combines research from social psychology and organizational behavior and addresses the emotional and motivational side of work. It concentrates on the reactions of people to work and the action plans that develop as a result of those reactions.

employee comparison methods

form of evaluation that involves the direct comparison of one person with another

internal consistency

form of reliability that assesses how consistently the items of a test measure a single construct; affected by the number of items in the test and the correlations among the test items. A common statistic used to estimate internal consistency is Cronbach's Alpha.

behavioral observation scale (BOS)

format that asks the rater to consider how frequently an employee has been seen to act in a particular way

forced-choice format

format that requires the rater to choose two statements out of four that could describe the ratee

g

general mental ability; the nonspecific capacity to reason, learn, and solve problems in any of a wide variety of ways and circumstances

scatterplot

graph used to plot the scatter of scores on two variables; used to display the correlational relationship between two variables

graphic rating scale

graphic display of performance scores that runs from high on one end to low on the other end

norm group

group whose test scores are used to compare and understand an individual's test score

altruism

helpful behaviors directed toward individuals or groups within the organization, such as offering to help a coworker who is up against a deadline

ultimate criterion (theoretical criterion)

ideal measure of all the relevant aspects of job performance

rating errors

inaccuracies in ratings that may be actual errors or intentional or systematic distortions

statistical significance

indicates that the probability of the observed statistic is less than the state significance level adopted by the researcher (commonly p<0.5). A statistically significant finding indicates that the results found are unlikely to have occurred by chance, and thus the null hypothesis (hypothesis of no effect) is rejected.

intelligence test

instrument designed to measure the ability to reason, learn, and solve problems

IQ

intelligence quotient; measure of intelligence obtained by giving a subject a standardized test. The score is obtained by multiplying by 100 the ration of the subject's mental age to chronological age.

work diary

job analysis approach that requires workers and/or supervisors to keep a log of their activities over a prescribed period of time

Personality-Related Position Requirements Form (PPRF)

job analysis instrument devoted to identifying personality predictors of job performance

termination for cause

job loss that occurs when an individual is fired from an organization for a particular reason; the individual has usually been warned one or more times about a problem and either cannot or will not correct it

expatriate

manager or professional assigned to work in a location outside of his or her home country

inter-rater reliability

measure of agreement among observers on how they record and classify a particular event

personnel measures

measure typically kept in a personnel file, including absences, accidents, tardiness, rate of advancement, disciplinary actions, and commendations of meritorious behavior

job evaluation

method for making internal pay decisions by comparing job titles to one another and determining their relative merit by way of these comparisons

multiple regression analysis

method of analysis that results in an equation for combining test scores into a composite based on the correlations among the test scores and the correlations of each test score with the performance score

statistical decision making

method that combines information according to a mathematical formula

clinical decision making

method that uses judgment to combine information and to make a decision about the relative value of different candidates or applicants

compensatory system

model in which a good score on one test can compensate for a lower score on another test

comprehensive staffing model

model that gathers enough high-quality information about candidates to predict the likelihood of their success on the varied demands of the job

destructive criticism

negative feedback that is cruel, sarcastic, and offensive; usually general rather than specific and often directed toward personal characteristics of the employee rather than job-relevant behaviors

hurdle system

noncompensatory strategy in which an individual has no opportunity to compensate at a later assessment stage for a low score in an earlier stage of the assessment process

comparable worth

notion that people who are performing jobs of comparable worth to the organization should receive comparable pay

Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures

official government guidelines designed to assist employers, labor organizations, employment agencies, and licensing and certification boards to comply with federal requirements

paper-and-pencil test

one of the most common forms of industrial testing that requires no manipulation of any objects other than the instrument used to respond

quasi-experimental design

participants are assigned to different conditions, but random assignment to conditions is not possible

experimental design

participants are randomly assigned to different conditions

base rate

percentage of the current workforce that is performing successfully

adaptive performance

performance component that includes flexibility and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances

expert performance

performance exhibited by those who have been practicing for at least 10 years and have spent an average of four hours per day in deliberate practice

stamina

physical ability to supply muscles with oxygenated blood through the cardiovascular system; cardiovascular enduarance

sensory abilities

physical functions of vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell, and kinesthetic feedback

psychometrics

practice of measuring a characteristic such as mental ability, placing it on a scale or metric; measuring the differences among individuals to predict later behavior

skills

practiced acts, such as shooting a basketball, using a computer keyboard, or persuading someone to buy something

high-performance work practices

practices that include the use of formal job analyses, selection from within for key positions, merit-based promotions, and the use of formal assessment devices for selection

hypothesis

prediction about relationship(s) among variables of interest

interests

preferences or likings for broad ranges of activities

360-degree feedback

process of collecting and providing a manager or executive with feedback from many sources, including supervisors, peers, subordinates, customers, and suppliers

job analysis

process that determines the important tasks of a job and the human attributes necessary to successfully perform those tasks

task performance

proficiency with which job incumbents perform activities that are formally recognized as a part of their job

Welfare-to-work program

program that requires individuals to work in return for government subsidies

Human Relations Movement

proposed that better human relations could increase worker productivity

research design

provides the overall structure or architecture for the research study; allows investigators to conduct scientific research on a phenomenon of interest

psychometrician

psychologist trained in measuring characteristics such as mental ability

simple ranking

ranking of employees from top to bottom according to their assessed proficiency on some dimension, duty area, or standard

behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS)

rating format that includes behavioral anchors describing what a worker has done, or might be expected to do, in a particular duty area

forced-distribution rating system

rating system that requires evaluators to place employees into performance categories based on a predetermined percentage of employees in different categories (low, moderate, high)

productivity

ratio of effectiveness (output) to the cost of achieving that level of effectiveness (input)

linear relationship

relationship between two variables that can be depicted by a straight line

nonlinear relationship

relationship between two variables that cannot be depicted by a straight line; sometimes called "curvilinear" and most easily identified by examining a scatterplot

quantitative methods

rely on tests, rating scales, questionnaires, and physiological measures and yield numerical results

survey design

research strategy in which participants are asked to complete a questionnaire or survey

norm-referenced cut score

score based on some index of the test takers' scores rather than any notion of job performance

criterion-referenced cut score

score established by considering the desired level of performance for a new hire and finding the test score that corresponds to the desired level of performance; sometimes called domain-referenced cut score

competencies

sets of behaviors, usually learned by experience, that are instrumental in the accomplishment of desired organizational results or outcomes

correlation coefficient

statistic assessing the bivariate, linear association between two variables. Provides information about both the magnitude (numerical value) and the direction (+ or - sign) of the relationship between two variables. A high value represents a strong association.

meta-analysis

statistical method for combining and analyzing the results from many studies to draw a general conclusion about relationships among variables

descriptive statistics

statistics that summarize, organize, and describe a sample of data

inferential statistics

statistics used to aid the researcher in testing hypotheses and making inferences from sample data to a larger sample or population

multiple hurdle system

strategy constructed from multiple hurdles so that candidates who do not exceed each of the minimum dimension scores are excluded from further consideration

performance management

system that emphasizes the link between individual behavior and organizational strategies and goals by defining performance in the context of those goals; jointly developed by managers and the people who report to them

Virtual Team

team that has widely dispersed members working together toward a common goal and linked through computers and other technology

bias

technical and statistical term that deals exclusively with a situation where a given test results in errors of prediction for a subgroup

paired comparison

technique in which each employee in a work group or a collection of individuals with the same job title is compared with every other individual in the group on the various dimensions being considered

policy capturing

technique that allows researchers to code various characteristics and determine which weighed most heavily in raters' decision making

utility analysis

technique that assesses the economic return on investment of human resource interventions such as staffing and training

g-ocentric model

tendency to understand and predict the behavior of workers simply by examining "g"

intelligence

the ability to learn and adapt to an environment; often used to refer to general intellectual capacity, as opposed to cognitive ability or mental ability, which often refer to more specific abilities such as memory or reasoning

validity

the accuracy of inferences made based on test or performance data; also addresses whether a measure accurately and completely represents what was intended to be measured

validity

the accurateness of inferences made based on test or performance data; also addresses whether a measure accurately and completely represents what was intended to be measured

Industrial-Organizational (I/O) Psychology

the application of psychological principles, theory, and research to the work setting

mean

the arithmetic average of a distribution, obtained by adding the scores in the distribution and then dividing by the sample size

cognitive ability

the capacity to reason, remember, understand, solve problems, and make decisions; mental ability

affect

the conscious subjective aspect of feeling or emotion

skew

the extent to which scores in a distribution are lopsided or tend to fall on the left or right side of the distribution. Positive skew means that the scores or observations are bunched at the bottom of the score range; negative skew means that scores or observations are bunched at the top of the score range.

variability

the extent to which scores in a distribution vary

statistical power

the likelihood of finding a statistically significant difference when a true difference exists

median

the middle scores in a distribution

mode

the most common or frequently occurring score in a distribution

observational design

the researcher observes employee behavior and systematically records what is observed

macro-research

the study of collective behavior

micro-research

the study of individual behavior

human engineering or human factors psychology

the study of the capacities and limitations of humans with respect to a particular environment. Almost the opposite of the personnel approach. The goal is to develop an environment that is compatible with the characteristics of the worker.

meso-research

the study of the interaction of individual and collective behavior

predictor

the test chosen or developed to assess attributes identified as important for successful job performance

incremental validity

the value in terms of increased validity of adding a particular predictor to an existing selection system

generalize

to apply the results from one study or sample to other participants or situations

absenteeism

type of counterproductive behavior that involves failure of an employee to report for or remain at work as scheduled

adverse (or disparate) treatment

type of discrimination in which the plaintiff attempts to show that the employer actually treated the plaintiff differently from majority applicants or employees; intentional discrimination

hands-on performance measurement

type of measurement that requires an employee to engage in work-related tasks; usually includes carefully constructed simulations of central or critical pieces of work that involve single workers

declarative knowledge

understanding what is required to perform a task; knowing information about a job or job task

big data

using large data sets to examine relationships among variables and to make organizational decisions based on such data

objective performance measure

usually a quantitative count of the results of work such as sales volume, complaint letters, and output

objective performance measures

usually a quantitative count of the results of work such as sales volume, complaint letters, and output

construct validity

validity approach in which investigators gather evidence to support decisions or inferences about psychological constructs; often begins with investigators demonstrating that a test designed to measure a particular construct correlates with other tests in the predicted manner

fairness

value judgement about actions or decisions based on test scores

counterproductive work behavior (CWB)

voluntary behavior that violates significant organizational norms and threatens the well-being of the organization, its members, or both

Mental Measurements Yearbook

widely used source that includes an extensive listing of tests as well as reviews of those tests

expert witness

witness in a lawsuit who is permitted to voice opinions about organizational practices

electronic performance monitoring

work processes with electronic devices; can be very cost-effective and has the potential for providing detailed and accurate work logs