Summary: Work Psychology (Psy09700)

Read the summary and the most important questions on WORK PSYCHOLOGY (PSY09700)

• 1 What is Work Psychology Anyway

• What is Work & Occupational Psychology?

  Protected titles across the world    
  

  • Occupational psychology (used in UK)  
  • Industrial psychology (more popular in the USA)
  • Organisational psychology  
  • Organisational behaviour  

  
  -Interchangeable… but subtle differences 
  -The focus of Occupational is individual. The focus of organisational starts with collectives 

• When did work start?  19th century

  • It depends on what you count as ‘work’    
  • Work ‘as we know it’…  
  • Industrial Revolution   
  • 19th century, welfare --> Factory Acts in UK    
  • Psychology ‘as we know it’…  
  • Developments in ‘scientific’ and experimental methodologies in psychology – 1870s  
  • Some ‘bumps’ along the way  
  • Applied to work – from the early 20th century   
    

• 2 Selection Part I - How do we do

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• Standards for Effectiveness (3) - RELIABILITY & INTERPRETABILITY

  RELIABILITY
  -Test-retest
  -Over diff, time periods
  
  -Inter-rater reliability
  -Degree of agreement between multiple raters: e.g. interviews
  Improved by structured scoring systems
  
  -Internal consistency
  -Items within test itself
  
  INTERPRETABILITY
  -Criterion-based
  -Usually fail-pass against a pre-set market E.g. driving test
  
  -Norm-based
  -Compares scores to those of other groups of people (norms)
  E.g. above/ below average, % scores or sten scores
  -Important to know what norms are available

• Standards for Effectiveness (3) - Add. Notes

  Internal consistency used to check that different parts of the test are measuring the same thing.
  
  A sten score indicates an individual's approximate position (as a range of values) with respect to the population of values and, therefore, to other people in that population.

• Standards for Effectiveness (4) - Utility

  Utility
  Fairness /equality
  It is most important to remember that, at the point of selection, all applicants must be judged equally on a job-related basis. Discrimination at the point of selection is unlawful.
  -Equality & Human Rights Commission
  -Need to demonstrate link to job performance
  
  Cost
  -Pull on organisational resources
  -Developing in-house test vs. buying from test publishers
  -In-house training vs external consultant
  
  Practicality

• Selection – Prelim Overview

  • Selection practices & theory driven by the Predictive/ Systematic Model
  • Central emphasis placed on organisation’s needs & criterion-related predictive validity

  • Ability of measure to predict a future criterion (job performance)

  
  

  • Model offers:
  • Possibility of a ‘sure and certain’ positive decision
  • Possibility of scientific, objective decision
  • Possibility of neutral, fair decision

• 3 Selection Part II - Taking a psychological approach to

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• Psychometrics - Ability Tests (1)

  General Mental Ability (GMA) – psychometric term for intelligence
  

  • Strong evidence of criterion-related validity for job performance (up to .64) & training (up to .74) Ones et al (2005)
  • Evidence across jobs & countries: e.g. Salgado et al. (2003)
  • But…Still controversy over adoption in practice: validity-diversity dilemma (e.g. Personnel Psychology vol 61(1)

  
  Specialized ability tests
  

  • Wide range for specific requirements
  • Validity evidence usually via test publishers
  • but see Ones et al (2005) for review

• Work Sample  - Summary

  Work Sample has high face validity.

• Throwing out baby with bathwater? [discard something valuable along with other things that are undesirable]

  1. Can decision-making ever be completely rational? Would we want it to be?
  2. Some ‘biases’ are important for job outcomes (Dipboye, 2005) 
  3. Increasing structure means restricting dialogue & flexibility
  4. Interview needs to be a two-way process
  5. Fairness in testing & perceived fairness of process can differ

• Interview – Summary & Tensions

  an idiomatic expression for an avoidable error in which something good is eliminated when trying to get rid of something bad