Category Archives: *Psychological Bulletin
Personality and academic performance
Topic: Selection
Publication: Psychological Bulletin (2009)
Article: A meta-analysis of the five-factor model of personality and academic performance
Authors: Arthur E. Poropat
Reviewed By: Scott Charles Sitrin, M.A.
Does a student’s personality affect his or her academic performance? Poropat thinks so, and in investigating correlates of academic performance, he reviewed many studies from the current literature, a process known as a meta analysis, and evaluated a sample of over 70,000 students. For personality, the investigator focused on the big five: extraversion, which relates to how outgoing someone is; openness, which relates to the level of curiosity; agreeableness, which is similar to levels of compassion and warmth; conscientiousness, which refers to the drive to succeed; and neuroticism, which relates to how secure someone feels. It was found that agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness correlated with academic performance. Conscientiousness seemed particularly important, as it appeared to determine academic performance as much as levels of intelligence.
These results provide further evidence that personality is related to academic performance, and it follows that personality should be related to performance in other domains, such as business. So, as you decide who to hire, make sure to account for personality in addition to the applicant’s resume, references, and prior work experience.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
Score one for standardized tests!
Topic: Selection
Publication: Psychological Bulletin (2001)
Article: A comprehensive meta-analysis of the predictive validity of the graduate record examinations: Implications for graduate student selection and performance
Authors: N. R. Kuncel, S. A. Hezlett, & D. S. Ones
Reviewed By: Scott Charles Sitrin, M.A.
Have you taken the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE)? This test is like the SAT on steroids, and it, just like the SAT, is thought to predict academic achievement. Unlike the SAT, the GRE is thought to predict academic performance in graduate school and not college. So, if you have taken the GRE, you may be aware the bone-chilling anxiety that it can induce, as it will determine which graduate school you get into and if you get into graduate school at all. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of taking this test, imagine working really hard in college in order to get good grades in the hopes of attending graduate school. While your friends were at the bar, you were in a cubicle in the library next to the guy whom thinks that a bag of Sun Chips is an acceptable snack for a quiet environment. Now, after four years of sacrifice, you have to take one more test, and the scores, at least in the eyes of some graduate programs, is more important than your academic achievement over the past four years. For a test with such significance, the question becomes, “does it work?”
The Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is a set of standardized tests that assess verbal, quantitative, and analytic capacities as well as knowledge of a particular field, such as psychology. In examining its validity, Kuncel, Hezlett, and Ones performed a massive meta-analysis that analyzed 1,753 samples and over 80,000 graduate students. They wanted to know the relationship between GRE scores and graduate school performance as indicated by graduate grade point average (GPA), 1st-year graduate GPA, scores on the comprehensive exam, number of publications, and faculty ratings. In short, the results indicated that the GRE is a valid predictor of graduate school performance, as it had a relationship with all of the performance indicators.
In relating these results to other domains, such as business, it appears that there is a role for standardized tests in predicting performance. What that role should be and how much reliance is placed on the instrument should be examined on a case-by-case basis. As other studies have indicated, other variables, such as personality and intelligence, also appear to predict performance, and in an ideal setting, all of these characteristics in addition to standardized tested should be utilized in trying to predict how well someone is going to do.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
source for picture: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Education_g314-Test_p13636.html
Learning to learn: aim high and believe in yourself!
Topic: Training, Goals, Learning
Publication: Psychological Bulletin (MAR 2011)
Article: A meta-analysis of self-regulated learning in work-related training and educational attainment: What we know and where we need to go
Authors: T. Sitzmann, K. Ely
Reviewed by: Alexandra Rechlin
When people self-regulate, they monitor their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in order to obtain some sort of goal. Self-regulated learning refers to when people attempt to monitor and control their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in order to attain a learning or achievement outcome. The authors of this article reviewed numerous theories of self-regulated learning and conducted a meta-analysis to better understand the extent to which self-regulated learning processes affect learning.
Think about the last time you attended some sort of training session. Assuming that you actually cared about learning something, you may have set a performance goal for yourself. That goal is a regulatory agent – it gets you moving towards positive outcomes. To achieve your goal, you may have used a number of strategies, like planning, monitoring, controlling your emotions, and environmental structuring (e.g., choosing to review training materials in a library instead of at a basketball game). These strategies are called regulatory mechanisms, because they are processes used to achieve a goal. Other regulatory mechanisms include metacognition (thinking about thinking), attention, learning strategies, persistence, time management, and effort. Finally, you might use regulatory appraisals to evaluate your progress towards achieving your learning goal. These regulatory appraisals include self-evaluation, attributions, and self-efficacy (belief in your own capabilities).
Selection Methods: Almost a Century of Research
Topic: Selection
Publication: Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 124
Article: The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology: Practical and theoretical implications of 85 years of research findings.
Authors: Frank Schmidt and John Hunter
Reviewed By: Bobby Bullock
In a practical sense, the most valuable attribute of a selection procedure (i.e., personnel assessment method) is the degree to which it successfully predicts future job performance, job-related learning, and other criteria. The term that describes the ability of an assessment tool to predict future performance is called predictive validity. The greater the predictive validity of a selection procedure (or some combination of assessment procedures), the better it is at predicting the outcomes described above. Selection procedures with high predictive validities also have more value for organizations; via increased productivity, output, and learning ability of their workforce. In a seminal article, Schmidt and Hunter (1998) conducted a meta-analysis on thousands of studies over 85 years to determine the predictive validity of 19 different selection procedures, both individually and in combination with general mental ability (GMA).
Schmidt and Hunter (1998) found GMA (also known as g, general intelligence, and general cognitive ability) to be the single best tool for selection. GMA measures have numerous benefits. They are:
- low-cost
- highly predictive of job and training performance
- supported by almost a century of research
- predict performance for all types of jobs and at all job levels
- not reliant on applicants having previous experience (as is the case with work sample and job knowledge tests)
Schmidt and Hunter (1998) even noted that GMA can be “considered the primary personnel measure for hiring decisions, and one can consider the remaining 18 personnel measures as supplements to GMA,” (p. 266). Therefore, according to their findings, the important question in selection is not “what single procedure should we use?” but rather “what procedure should be combined with a GMA assessment?”
