Personalizing an Implicit Measure of Job Satisfaction

Implicit attitude measures have become increasingly popular over the last two decades due to their ability to circumvent a number of the limitations of explicit measures and predictive validity evidence for certain behaviors that is superior to explicit measures. However, a number of improvements have been suggested, including personalizing the implicit measure to better capture the participant’s attitude, not their general evaluation of constructs involved. This paper examined implicit job satisfaction with a modified version of a pre-established measure (IAT; Boyd, 2010), proposed a new personalized measure (P-IAT), and examined the relationships of these measures with organizationally-relevant attitudes and behaviors, within a sample of customer service employees. The IAT was found to significantly correlate with the P-IAT, explicit job satisfaction, job involvement, and counterproductive work behaviors. Correlations between the IAT and both organizational citizenship behaviors and counterproductive work behaviors were enhanced when the respondent was asked to provide ratings from someone else’s perspective, instead of their own. This modification attempted to examine a more psychologically distant construct, for which implicit measures should be more strongly related than explicit. The P-IAT was only significantly related to the IAT and voluntary absence. The relationship between the IAT and explicit job satisfaction was moderated by time-related metrics (years of work experience, months in current role, and age). There was a positive correlation between the IAT and explicit job satisfaction amongst participants with lower time metrics, but amongst participants with higher time metrics, there was no relationship

Concurrent validity of the pain locus of control scale and its relationship to treatment outcome variables

Studies have shown that locus of control orientation is related to emotional and behavioral adjustment to chronic pain. Researchers have begun the process of establishing the validity and reliability of the Pain Locus of Control Scale. This study was conducted to establish the concurrent validity of the PLC Scale at the time of follow-up from pain management treatment, an effort not previously undertaken. In addition, studies suggest that those persons with an Internal locus of control orientation demonstrate more favorable treatment outcomes, as compared to a Powerful others or Chance locus of control. This research examined the relationship between treatment outcome measures and locus of control orientations, as measured by the PLC Scale. Data analysis revealed that the PLC Scale correlated significantly with all of the instruments used to establish concurrent validity. These included the Pain and Impairment Relationship Scale, the Coping Strategy Questionnaire, and the Cognitive Errors Questionnaire-Low Back Scale. In addition, the Internal orientation correlated significantly with favorable treatment outcomes, while the Powerful others and Chance orientations correlated with unfavorable outcomes. Several limitations of the study were noted and discussed. Suggestions were made for further research; these included replicating the concurrent validity of the PLC Scale at the time of follow-up

Advising perceptions in Student Support Services programs

This study seeks to understand the perceptions of advisors and students about the TRIO Student Support Services they provide or receive, with particular attention to how their perceptions relate to best practice theories of developmental and prescriptive advising behaviors. By comparing the perceptions of stakeholders to the theory behind the services, a better understanding of the current advising practice of Student Support Services (SSS) is obtained. Data for this study were derived from the Academic Advising Inventory (AAI), a compilation of both advisors’ and students’ perceptions of services in SSS. Observations and quantitative data were used in this study. Five advisors and 25 students from three institutions participated in this study. Advisors and students overwhelmingly perceived developmental advising in observed advising sessions; however, advisors’ and students’ scores widely ranged. Advisors tended to overscore their advising behavior and students tended to underscore their advisors’ advising behavior. Inconsistencies were detected of perceptions of topic/activity frequency between advisors, students and me. Students also reported being “very satisfied” with the advising services they received in the SSS programs. Results of this study can be used to: 1) identify optimum advising behaviors in Student Support Services; 2) raise the importance and recognition level on the differences and similarities of advisor and student perceptions of services which can and do have an impact on the creation of advising policies; 3) recognize and understand kinds of discrepancies and homogeneity of advisor and student perceptions of advising services to assist and support the needs of disadvantaged students; 4) assess, design or revise advising training programs for SSS advisors and possibly for campus-wide advisor training programs as well

ANALYSIS OF TEACHING STYLES, ADULT LEARNING THEORIES, AND FACTORS INFLUENCING TEACHING STYLE PREFERENCES IN ADULT EDUCATION INSTRUCTORS: IMPLICATION FOR PRACTICE

The teacher is the most influential and important variable in the classroom for student achievement. Therefore, the need for teachers to identify and utilize best teaching practices is fundamental to a progressing society. Despite the literature advocating and proposing the student-centered approach as the preferred method of teaching in adult education, most empirical studies indicate that teachers employed the traditional teacher-centered approach. The purpose of this study was to examine the teaching style preferences of adult education instructors and the influence of gender, age, participation in professional development in adult education, years of teaching experience, teaching subject, and levels of education on teaching style preferences. A quantitative survey research design was used in which a two-part survey was utilized to collect data from the teachers. The first part of the survey was developed by the researcher to gather personal information about the teachers, while the second part of the questionnaire utilized the unmodified Principles of Adult Learning Scale (PALS). The data used for this study was collected from (N = 67) adult education instructors. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, independent samples t-tests, and one-way ANOVA. The dependent variables were the total scores on the PALS and the total scores of the seven PALS factors. The independent variables were the demographic variables of gender, age, educational level, years of teaching experience, professional development, and teaching subject/program. The results from the study showed that most of the teachers (n = 49) scored below the norm mean (teacher-centered) as determined by the mean scores of PALS. Also, the results of the seven PALS factors revealed mixed method use of both teacher and student-centered approaches but a strong inclination to teacher-centered. The independent samples t-tests results showed that there was no difference in teaching style preferences between male and female teachers and among those with different levels of education. The ANOVA results revealed a significant relationship between teaching style and the demographic factors of age, years of teaching experience, and the teaching subject. In the age category, there was a significant difference in Participation in the Learning Process factor. In the category of years of teaching experience, there was a significant difference in the total PALS score. In the teaching subject category, there was a significant difference in Relating to Experience factor. There was no significant difference in teaching style and participation in professional development in adult education. The lack of differences and relationships in some of the factors and variables may be attributed to the sample size used in the study

Assessing the Effectiveness of Personalized Computer-Administered Feedback in an Introductory Biology Course

Though often held in high regard as a pedagogical tool, the role of feedback within the learning process remains poorly understood. The prevailing feedback literature reveals a history of inconsistent if not contradictory findings. This already complicated state is made worse by the recent introduction of learning analytic tools capable of providing students with ongoing personalized computer-generated feedback; the effectiveness of which remains unknown. The present study contributed to this new domain of knowledge by evaluating one such circumstance where a learning analytic feedback intervention was implemented in an introductory biology course at the University of Saskatchewan. The system provided personalized feedback to half of the enrolled students differentiated according their individual characteristics. The remaining students received generic feedback that was common to all students within the condition. The effectiveness of personalized feedback was evaluated with respect to academic achievement (i.e., final grade) and feedback satisfaction. Results of the treatment effect analyses showed no significant differences in student academic achievement but a small significant difference in feedback satisfaction. Follow-up analyses revealed that these significant differences in feedback satisfaction were not consistent from one iteration of the course to the next and that mean feedback satisfaction was in steady decline since the system’s implementation. It is suspected that the lack of improvement in academic achievement pertained to poor adherence of the system with the theoretical underpinnings of good feedback practice. Limitations of the study and future directions are discussed

Towards an Effective Organization-Wide Bulk Email System

Bulk email is widely used in organizations to communicate messages to employees. It is an important tool in making employees aware of policies, events, leadership updates, etc. However, in large organizations, the problem of overwhelming communication is widespread. Ineffective organizational bulk emails waste employees' time and organizations' money, and cause a lack of awareness or compliance with organizations' missions and priorities. This thesis focuses on improving organizational bulk email systems by 1) conducting qualitative research to understand different stakeholders; 2) conducting field studies to evaluate personalization's effects on getting employees to read bulk messages; 3) designing tools to support communicators in evaluating bulk emails. We performed these studies at the University of Minnesota, interviewing 25 employees (both senders and recipients), and including 317 participants in total. We found that the university's current bulk email system is ineffective as only 22% of the information communicated was retained by employees. To encourage employees to read high-level information, we implemented a multi-stakeholder personalization framework that mixed important-to-organization messages with employee-preferred messages and improved the studied bulk email's recognition rate by 20%. On the sender side, we iteratively designed a prototype of a bulk email evaluation platform. In field evaluation, we found bulk emails' message-level performance helped communicators in designing bulk emails. We collected eye-tracking data and developed a neural network technique to estimate how much time each message is being read using recipients' interactions with browsers only, which improved the estimation accuracy to 73%. In summary, this work sheds light on how to design organizational bulk email systems that communicate effectively and respect different stakeholders' value.Comment: PhD Thesi

The role of the individual in the coming era of process-based therapy

For decades the development of evidence-based therapy has been based on experimental tests of protocols designed to impact psychiatric syndromes. As this paradigm weakens, a more process-based therapy approach is rising in its place, focused on how to best target and change core biopsychosocial processes in specific situations for given goals with given clients. This is an inherently more idiographic question than has normally been at issue in evidence-based therapy over the last few decades. In this article we explore methods of assessment and analysis that can integrate idiographic and nomothetic approaches in a process-based era.Accepted manuscrip