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Blogging SIOP, Day -1 April 14, 2005
If I may be allowed the indulgance of using a noun as a verb, I've decided to "blog" the SIOP (Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology) annual conference this year. No, seriously. Why not? Nobody else is doing it, and if anyone comes here looking to download my presentations and clicks on the "blog" link, I'd rather he not just see entries about cross-gender MMORPG gaming (though given the growth of the "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgernder" scene at SIOP, that might be of interest).
Good news: The conference is in Los Angeles this year, which means little travel. Other good news: I'm making two presentations at the conference this year --one on improving applicant reactions to selection tests by changing how the tests are administered and the other one on building an offline testing system that still benefits from information technology. Bad news: They double-booked me so that I have to make the two presentations at the same time in two different places. Better news: My boss from Sempra is stepping in to do one of them while I give the other.
I'm actually up in Los Angeles now, having driven up yesterday for semi-related business with work. The hotel I'm staying at is nice, thought the clerk didn't seem to appreciate it when I told her that it didn't make much sense to charge $12.99 per movie to see a a new release in your room while they only charged $9.99 for a whole day's worth of high-speed internet access, the latter of which could --theoretically-- be used to download and watch all the movies I want. It didn't really matter much, as I just read a book anyway.
I took some time today to go through the SIOP program and pick out things I wanted to see. As usual, there are a TON of great programs, workshops, roundtables, and discussions going on. More than I can make it to even if I limit it mostly to selection/assessment topics that have the most relevance to my current job. Here's what I highlighted as likely candidates:
- The Usefulness of Personality Variables at Work
- Cutting-Edge Tools for Traditional Job Analysis: How Technology Maximizes Efficiency
- References and Recommendation Letters: Psychometric, Ethical, Legal, and Practical Issues
- Applying Validity Generalization: A View form the Job Analysis Trenches
- Fundamentals of Employment Law: Concepts and Applications
- Performance Appraisal Isn't performance Measurement: Why Poor Workers Receive Good Ratings
- Experience-Based Prescreens: Suggestions for Improved Practice
- Validation Studies: Working with Difficult Clients or Data
- Maintaining Test Security in a "Cheating" Culture
- Where Recruitment is @: Current Approaches to Web-Based Attraction Research
- Evolutionary Psychology's Relevance to I-O Psychology
- Have You Ever Wondered? Research Ponderables from Employee Survey Experiences
- Getting Started with Computer-Based Testing
- Cut Scores in Employment Discrimination Cases: Where We Are Today
- Emotional Intelligence and its Impact on Job Performance
There were too other symposia titles that jumped out at me. Not because they looked particularly interesting (though they may be), but because they were funny. The first is "Online Assessment as a Valid Enhancement of the Selection Process." This title struck me ass peculiar because it's so broad despite sounding so specific. What "online assessment?" Wich "selection process?" Kind of a good example of writing a symposium proposal so vague yet so enticing that it gets accepted and you don't have to actually worry about the contents. (Though for the record once you drill down and read the titles of the presentations therein, they DO sound pretty good.)
The second presentation struck me as funny because while other titles were making copious (and sometimes gramatically suspect) use of colons, semicolons, and other bastardisations of the English language, this one is simply entitled "A Master Tutorial by Sidney A. Fine." No explanation, no details, just the man --excuse me, the MAN-- who will be delivering it. It's actually doubly amusing for those of us in the biz, though, because Sidney Fine's name IS inextricably tied to the topic of "Functional Job Analysis" and thus doesn't actually require any more explanation. It's like seeing a playbill for "A Night of Shakespeare" or an ad for "SpongeBob on Ice." You know you're in for a night of gibberish-filled pandering to the lowest common demoninator and an an afternoon of fine theater (respectively). Such it is with "A Master Tutorial by Sidney A. Fine," though Dr. Fine's presentation doesn't have regicide, incest, or a catchy theme song.
...Probably.
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I/O Psychology
Tags: Employment Testing, I/O Psychology
