I-O Chapter 2

Front 1

Science

Back 1

approach that involves the understanding, prediction, and control of some phenomenon of interest.

Front 2

Hypothesis

Back 2

prediction about relationship among variables of interest

Front 3

Expert witness

Back 3

unlike a fact witness, is permitted to voice opinions about practices.

Front 4

Daubert Challenge

Back 4

Challenge in which opposing lawyers may ask the judge to prevent the expert witness from voicing an opinion in front of a jury, arguing that the jury will be swayed by an expert testifying about a topic that cannot be considered a legitimate scientific topic

Front 5

If an expert wants to present a theory in his or her testimony, the theory must meet several requirements. The most important of these are

Back 5

o The theory must be recognized by the particular scientific area as worthy of attention. This recognition comes through publication in scholary journals.
o The theory must have been peer reviewed, or subjected to scientific scrutiny that considers plausible alternative explanations
o The theory must have a known “error rate,” meaning that its accuracy has been evaluated with data
o The theory must be replicable, or testable, by another scientist.

Front 6

Good theories

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o Offer insights
o Are interesting
o Are focused
o Are relavant to important topics
o Provide explanations
o Are practical

Front 7

Research Design

Back 7

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

Front 8

Experimental design

Back 8

participants are randomly assigned to different conditions

Front 9

Quasi-experimental design

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

Front 10

Non-experimental design

Back 10

does not include any “treatment” or assignment to different conditions.

Front 11

Observational design

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: the researcher observes employee behavior and systematically records what is observed

Front 12

Survey Design

Back 12

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

Front 13

Quantitative Methods

Back 13

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

Front 14

Qualitative Methods

Back 14

: rely on observation, interview, case study, and analysis of diaries or written documents and produce flow diagrams and narrative descriptions of events or processes

Front 15

Introspection

Back 15

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

Front 16

Triangulation

Back 16

approach in which researchers seek converging information from different sources

Front 17

Job analysis

Back 17

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

Front 18

Generalize

Back 18

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

Front 19

Experimental control

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

Front 20

Statistical Control

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

Front 21

Descriptive statistics

Back 21

summarize, organize and describe a sample of data

Front 22

Measure of central tendency

Back 22

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

Front 23

Variability

Back 23

the extent to which scores in a distribution vary

Front 24

Skew

Back 24

the extent to which scores in a distribution are lopsided or tend to fall on the left or right side of the distribution

Front 25

Inferential Statistics

Back 25

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

Front 26

Statistical significance

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indicates that the probability of the observed statistic is less than the stated significance level adopted by the researcher. A statistically significant finding indicates that, if the null hypotheses were true, the results found are unlikely to occur by chance, and the null hypothesis is rejected.

Front 27

Statistical power

Back 27

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

Front 28

Measurement

Back 28

assigning numbers to characteristics of individuals or objects according to rules.

Front 29

Correlation Coefficient

Back 29

statistic assessing the bivariate, linear association between two variables. Provides information about both the magnitude and the direction of the variables

Front 30

Scatterplot

Back 30

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

Front 31

Regression line

Back 31

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.

Front 32

Meta-analysis

Back 32

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

Front 33

Statistical Artifacts

Back 33

Characteristics 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 in interest

Front 34

Reliability

Back 34

consistency or stability of a measure

Front 35

Validity

Back 35

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

Front 36

Test-retest reliability

Back 36

calculated by correlating measurements taken at time one with measurements taken at time two

Front 37

Equivalent forms reliability

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

Front 38

Internal consistency

Back 38

form of reliability that assesses how consistently the items of a est measure a single construct; affected by the number of items I the test and the correlation among test items

Front 39

Generalizabilty Thory

Back 39

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

Front 40

Predictor

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

Front 41

Criterion

Back 41

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

Front 42

Criterion-related validity

Back 42

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

Front 43

Validity coefficient

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correlation coefficient between a test score and a performance measure

Front 44

Predictive validity design

Back 44

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

Front 45

concurrent validity design

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criterion related validity design in which there is no time lag between gathering the test scores and the performance data

Front 46

content-related validation design

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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

Front 47

construct validity

Back 47

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

Front 48

construct

Back 48

psych concentpt or characteristic theat a predictor is intended to measure. Intelligence, personality, and leadership