Browsing by Author "Oswald, Frederick L"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Is Hiring Fair and Accurate? Perceptions of Statistical and Practical Significance of Adverse Impact Indices
    (2024-04-12) Courey, Karyssa A; Oswald, Frederick L
    Historically, the impact ratio and ZD test are widely used by organizations and the courts to assess a type of employment discrimination called adverse impact. However, previous court decisions have been inconsistent in their application of these measures. To understand this inconsistency, the present two-part study examines (1) how 31 personnel selection and legal experts select, apply, and communicate adverse impact measures in practice in a qualitative study, and (2) how 23 highly numerate experts make decisions about meaningful hiring differences when presented with adverse impact measures (the impact ratio and ZD test) in an experimental study. The qualitative study provides rich expert insights on the most generally recommended adverse impact measures, important situational and contextual factors, the measures most compelling when supporting adverse impact claims versus defending against claims, the easiest versus most difficult measures to communicate to stakeholders, and the measures viewed as ideal. Although many of the ideas discussed by the experts are not novel, some clear themes were identified in the qualitative study (i.e., statistical analyses, data, organization-centered factors, and contextual factors) as well as a host of subthemes (e.g., practical significance, sample size, data aggregation, communication, the goal of the adverse impact analysis). Turning to the experiment, all participants were highly numerate, creating range restriction that limited my original intent to analyze individual differences and decision-making quality through the lens of fuzzy-trace theory (a dual-process theory of memory and decision-making, e.g., Reyna & Brainerd, 1995). Nevertheless, I still found some preliminary support for Hypotheses 1-3, suggesting that participants extracted the meaning of the measures, and made calibrated ordinal judgments that were valid (distinguishing between no support to extreme support of meaningful hiring differences across conditions) and reliable (providing little variability in judgments within conditions). In regard to Hypothesis 4, both the impact ratio and ZD test were rated as similarly useful. Finally, an exploratory analysis suggested that experts relied more on the ZD test than the impact ratio and raw hiring rates when making judgments of meaningful hiring differences. I conclude with a two-part discussion that highlights integrative themes (i.e., history and legal precedent limiting the development and use of novel methods or improved practices, and communicating analyses to stakeholders) and elaborates on the experimental findings in light of fuzzy-trace theory.
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    Personality Traits, Prosocial Knowledge, Charismatic Leadership Behavior, and Clinical Performance of Indian Medical Students
    (2016-04-25) Ghosh, Kamalika; Motowidlo, Stephan J.; Oswald, Frederick L; Beier, Margaret E
    Abstract This study replicates and extends findings reported by Ghosh, Motowidlo, and Nath (2015) that Indian medical students’ prosocial knowledge is positively correlated with their clinical performance. It examines the antecedents of medical students’ charismatic leadership behavior and its contribution to their clinical performance. This study also investigates whether the strongest personality determinant of prosocial knowledge and charismatic leadership behavior is different in a high power distance culture (conscientiousness) than in a low power distance culture (agreeableness). In a sample of 343 Indian medical students, students’ prosocial knowledge positively correlated (.21, p <.01) with their clinical performance. Although Indian medical students’ (N = 96 – 109) charismatic leadership behavior failed to show significant association with their clinical performance (.07, NS) and prosocial knowledge (.18, NS), it positively correlates with agreeableness (.43, p <.01), and conscientiousness (.40, p <.01). Contrary to expectations, conscientiousness failed to show stronger association with knowledge and leadership constructs, than agreeableness in India’s high power distance culture which demonstrates agreeableness’ role as a global predictor of prosocial knowledge. Practical and theoretical contributions of this study are discussed with recommendations for future research.
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    Using the Job-Demands Resource Model to Predict Retention-Related Outcomes in Animal Welfare Volunteers
    (2022-08-12) Mulfinger, Evan; Oswald, Frederick L
    Retaining an adequate number of volunteers is important to ensure animal welfare organizations can provide critical services to companion animals and members of their community. This study was conducted to examine whether the job demands-resource model (JD-R: Demerouti et al., 2001; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004), a model commonly used in employment settings, is a useful framework to predict three retention-related variables in animal welfare volunteers: intention to quit, volunteer frequency, and commitment. The JD-R model posits that job demands and job resources are important predictors of burnout and engagement, which themselves are significant predictors of various work outcomes. The study tested this model using 11,430 volunteers across 148 animal welfare organizations. Utilizing structural equation modeling, the study found that organizational constraints, perception of voice, and recognition, were all predictive of burnout. Subsequently, burnout was identified as a predictor of intention to quit and volunteer frequency. Perception of voice and recognition were also identified as predictors of engagement, and subsequently predictive of commitment. Additional analyses revealed the relationship between organizational constraints and burnout was moderated by tenure, suggesting that volunteers with longer tenure were partially protected from the negative consequences of organizational constraints. Thus, results provided evidence that the JD-R model is indeed a useful framework to study the antecedents of retention-related outcomes in animal welfare volunteers. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
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    Zooming in on Communities of writing students: The impact of COVID-19 on writing self-efficacy
    (2022-04-15) Wu, Felix Y; Oswald, Frederick L
    Under the COVID-19 pandemic virtual learning environment, instructors have had to address various challenges such as integrating technologies with the curriculum, encouraging social interactions among students, and keeping students cognitively engaged and motivated. These challenges may be usefully organized into teaching, social, and cognitive presences within the Communities of Inquiry (CoI) framework as well as the learner characteristic of self-efficacy, which is necessary to keep students motivated. Specifically, the current study sought to investigate how these challenges are interrelated in the domain of writing and impact academic outcomes among 142 Rice University students enrolled in a First Year Writing Seminar. Because there was no variance in slopes among students and academic performance was range restricted, the main findings associated with the slope could not reject the null hypothesis. However, exploratory analyses reveal that cognitive presence and writing self-efficacy intercepts were more impactful on beliefs and affect about writing.