WEEK 3-4 Work and Org Psych Flashcards
skills, knowledge, abilities and other
personal characteristics (KSAOs) \
skills,
knowledge,
abilities and
other personal characteristics
SME
Subject matter Expert
Incumbant
Worker/employee
Classification (or The Dictionary of
Occupational Titles (DOT) ANZCO or OSCA is also used to
identify and train inexperienced
workers, to assist disabled workers to find suitable employment and
in the design of new jobs
A job description contains key information elements—
the job title, the
core job tasks,
the working conditions (location and reporting) and the conditions of
employment (e.g. hours, wages and benefits)
A —– ——- describes the minimal acceptable skills and characteristics required by the job
incumbent in order to perform the job effectively
job
specification
A —– —— describes
the monetary value of a specific job within an organisation, that is, how much a job is actually
worth. T
job evaluation
(he value of a job is calculated by the skills, knowledge and other abilities required by
the incumbent, and by the current availability of such workers in the labour market. Job
evaluations are used to establish the level of salary, benefits and other rewards of a job.)
These KSAOs or —— include both enduring personal traits (such as
personality characteristics) and job-specific skills which can be learnt
competencies
The resulting list of KSAOs is
reviewed for accuracy and the SMEs are asked to rate each characteristic on four criteria
if it is ‘necessary for new workers’
if it is ‘practical to expect’
the ‘degree of trouble likely’ if the KSAO is absent
if the KSAO ‘distinguishes superior workers from the average’
A job analysis may be affected by the —— of the SME/analyst
KSAOs
for those with some experience of police work, conducting a police officer job analysis would be easier than it would be for someone who knows very little about policing. Thus the accuracy of a job analysis may also be influenced by
the analyst’s KSAOs.
The two most common qualitative job analysis methods in use today are
job observation and job participation.
The advantages of using quantitative job analysis methods include having a standard, objective
method of data collection; saving time and money; and comparing
the data against established
national and international databases.
Functional Job Analysis has 7 steps
preliminaries
group interview
development of a task bank
grouping of job tasks
performance dimensions
reliability of job tasks
validity of job tasks.
asked to give a specific example of how
you managed a certain situation, such as dealing with an angry customer, then you have already
experienced the —– ——-
critical incident technique (CIT).
The CIT process traditionally involves six steps conducted with the SMEs:
Defining the objective of the analysis: Defining the purpose of the exercise via a brief
explanation; for example—selection of senior retail assistants with high levels of customer
service, responsiveness and a strong work ethic.
Identifying and writing dimensions to assess performance: Ensuring the SMEs understand
what a critical incident is and identifying the core characteristics that a good job incumbent
should possess. These characteristics are turned into performance dimensions, which will be
measured by one or more critical incidents; for example—customer service skills (polite,
non-intrusive, knowledgeable and responsive).
Generation of the critical incidents: The job analyst elicits critical incidents from the SMEs
via one-on-one interviews, focus groups or questionnaires. Each critical incident must contain
four properties:
consequences of the behaviour.
Retranslating the incidents: The generated incidents are reviewed by the SMEs for accuracy
and clarity.
Forming categories: The analyst sorts the incidents into groups according to the objective of
the analysis (from step 1). Large groups are subdivided into smaller categories. Each category
should contain incidents that demonstrate good, average and poor job performance. An
example of categories for the job of retail assistant would be:
a) category 1: managing dissatisfied or angry customers
b) category 2: stock rotation
c) category 3: professional conduct.
Reviewing the incidents: Finally, the categories of incidents are reviewed to ensure
accuracy, realism and a lack of repetition
Each critical incident must contain
four properties:
consequences of the behaviour.
Retranslating the incidents: The generated incidents are reviewed by the SMEs for accuracy
and clarity.
Forming categories: The analyst sorts the incidents into groups according to the objective of
the analysis (from step 1).
Large groups are subdivided into smaller categories. Each category
should contain incidents that demonstrate good, average and poor job performance.
Reviewing the incidents: Finally, the categories of incidents are reviewed to ensure
accuracy, realism and a lack of repetition
An
example of categories for the job of retail assistant would be:
a) category 1: managing dissatisfied or angry customers
b) category 2: stock rotation
c) category 3: professional conduct.
Reviewing the incidents: Finally, the categories of incidents are reviewed to ensure
accuracy, realism and a lack of repetition
a self-report questionnaire containing a broad
range of core job activities used for Job analysis
position analysis questionnaire (PAQ)
One important change to the PAQ was the inclusion of new items
relating to
disabilities,
education requirements,
fair standards,
occupational stress
and other contemporary job analysis issues
The six categories of work behaviour measured by the PAQ are:
Information input: The format of job-related information received by the worker.
Mental processes: The mental demands of a job such as the degree of decision-making,
judgment, planning, coding or memory requirements.
Work output: How work output is produced, such as via the use of tools, machines or the
worker’s own hands.
Relationships with other people: The degree and level of communication and personal
contact with others that the job requires.
Job content: The physical and social environment of the job, including levels of noise,
lighting, hazards, confined spaces, dirt and social contact.
Other job characteristics: Miscellaneous items such as uniforms, certification, the pace and repetition of work, and specialised talents
Issues of reliability and validity are
especially important to protect against
analyst bias and to
ensure that the data generated by the job analysis is objective.
Dierdorff and Wilson (2003) conducted a meta
analysis of the reliability of a number of job analysis methods, finding that —- ——-, rather
than ———–, produced more reliable data,
job analysts, rather
than incumbents
(and that specific task data rather than
generalised job analysis methods (ie the PAQ) produced reliable data)
Spector
et al. (1989) reported that test-retest reliability was lowest for the —— in comparison with
three other job analysis methods.
PAQ
The PAQ demonstrated the most
diverse range of validity scores, suggesting that it is influenced by some ——- ——-
subjective biases
