1

Course: APPL 655 Practical Applications in I/O

Psychology

Tom Mitchell, U. of Baltimore, (Instructor)

Div of Applied Psychology & Quant MethodsTmitchell@ubalt.edu http://home.ubalt.edu/tmitch

Mike Sturman, Cornell U. (DataSim)

Organizational Mgt, Communication, and Law

mcs5@cornell.edu (607) 255-5383

2

Capstone Course in I/O ΨU. of Baltimore M.S. in Applied Ψ

M.S. Curriculum in I/O (42 hours)

Personnel (I):Job analysis / personnel / assessment

Organizational (O): Org psych / motivation-satisfaction-leadership

Core:Research methods / statistics

3

Competencies Demonstrated Core SKAs:

Conduct job analysis Develop performance appraisal Develop employee selection program Assess employee morale Analyze data

Software utilization

Communication / Interpersonal skills: Report writing Oral presentation of findings Teamwork skills

4

Course Format

Applied Psychology Consultants Inc. APC, Inc. (virtual consulting firm)

Instructor(s) = Senior consultant

Students = Junior consultants 3 projects each

(selection/performance appraisal/satisfaction) Team Leader on one of projects

5

Course Format (dynamic/interactive)

Instructor responds:to identified problemschanges/redirects (via memos)to proposed solutions to interventions

Provides:simulated feedback (data)

- to confirm/disconfirm hypotheses

critique / recommendations

6

DataSim (Mike Sturman)

Visual Basic program: Creates data sets to user

specifications Saves simulation / data in txt file

- For import to Excel/SPSS/SAS/ etc. Imports existing data Adds additional variables later

7

DataSim (Sturman)

Constructs / variables (unlimited):Number of items (unlimited)Reliability (internal consistency)Correlation matrix (user specified)

Construct types:Normal (continuous) Categorical Custom continuous

8

Item types & char Normal continuous

Min/max/ mean/ standard deviation Truncate / winsorize

Categorical 2 to 12 Proportion of each category

Custom - continuous Median / standard deviation Skew level (+ to -) Tail elongation

9

Project Process: Team Identifies problem Formulates hypotheses Develops assessment plan Requests data from organization

Develops or finds existing measures (test/questionnaire/survey)

Creates SPSS data structure / parameters

10

Example: Sel3: Alum Alum Corp.

Selection of mid-managers Concurrent Validation study Demographics:

Race/gender/education Predictors:

WPT/WGCTA/CPI Criteria:

Grievances / supervisor rating

11

Project Process: Team Analyses data using SPSS

Incorporates results in report

Forwards report to Instructor for critique / grade

12

Uses of DataSim Research methods

Simulate data for proposals Test “pilot” data for studies

Statistics coursesCreate data sets for examples

AssessmentDevelop unique data set for each student

13

Suggestions?

For DataSim? Other uses?What you would like it to do?

For Capstone course?