Hrm. Today didn’t start off quite as well, as I missed the 10-second window in the coffee break during which food is actually available. Get there late as I did and all the grad students leave you are crumbs and a few dozen apples.
Sessions!
8:00 – 9:50 A.M. Practitioner Forum – Applying Validity Generalization: A View from the Job-Analysis Trenches
Not much to say about this one, other than it has a lot of relevance to what I do at work. Good stuff. Only funny thing was that I sat next to Frank Schmidt, he of “general intelligence: It’s what’s for dinner and it’s all you’re going to eat, EVER” fame. Actually, sitting next to him wasn’t the funny part. The funny part was after someone asked about generalizing the validity from an intelligence test for plumbers to a similar test for accountants and hearing Schmidt mutter, “This has already been proven. Why would you waste time proving it again if it’s already been proven.”
10:30 – 11:50 A.M. Practitioner Forum – Experience-Based Prescreens: Suggestions for Improved Practice
Another good session. This one struck me several times with ideas that seem obvious once you hear them, but for some reason few people really think of. Some of the presenters talked about how they replaced those dubious pre-screening questions with items that are much more grounded in job analysis (shock! amazement!) and more likely to increase the overall validity of a selection process. So instead of “Do you have a college degree?” you ask questions about their knowledge of specific things they should have learned about in school or how many times they’ve done tasks necessary for the job. There was also a good talk about “when is an applicant an applicant,” which I actually touched on here once.
12:00 – 1:20 P.M. Panel Discussion – Validation Studies: Working with Difficult Clients or Data
This was a sequel to a similar presentation from last year. They’re both probably best described as “When Good Validation Studies Go Bad.” The idea was to present a few problematic scenarios common to test validation then describe what experts working in the realms of academics, internal consulting, external consulting, and government had to say about it. Some of it was pie in the sky unlimited resources textbook answers, but just as much was practical advice that made a lot of sense. And I’m glad that in many cases my own intuition and experiences were dead on with what was recommended by the experts.
1:20 – 2:50 P.M. Practitioner Forum – Maintaining Test Security in a “Cheating” Culture
I thought this session was largely about maintaining test security so that people couldn’t get ahold of copies. What surprised me was the number of sites, books, and sundry scams out there tailored towards giving you leaked copies of tests and/or the answers to go with them. The U.S. Postal Service took a unique stance against this by releasing, for free, all the information that these guys were trying to sell people. Another presenter discussed how they went to incredible lengths to ensure test security in what sounded more like a scene from a Tom Clancey novel: Guards carrying self-destructing packages full of tests and sending them on their way in armor-plated trucks. And i thought tests were secure if they were in a locked filing cabinet.
3:30 – 5:20 P.M. Theoretical Advancement – Evolutionary Psychology’s Relevance to I-O Psychology
Whew. This was kind of a weird one. Late as it was in the day, I kind of spaced out and only really remember four things:
- Men want to have sex with as many women as possible.
- Nepotism exists family-owned businesses.
- Sparrows like to take risks.
- Asians dig Confucius.
- I barely stifled a blast of laughter when one of the presenters put up a reference to “Wang & Johnson (2004).” I’m such a child sometimes.
This particular symposium was …eclectic.
Didn’t do much tonight. I grabbed some take-out from a restaurant near the hotel then came back to the room to take it easy. I had good intentions to go over and hit some of the receptions tonight, but I don’t think that’s in the cards at this point.
Published by