Why Does the Public Sector Resist Unproctored Internet Testing?

Two studies examine public-sector practitioners’ concerns about unproctored Internet testing (UIT) for preemployment tests. Study 1 compared public- and private-sector practitioners (n = 66) on possible barriers to UIT adoption (i.e., lack of diffusion, measurement concerns, legal risk, and costs of implementation). Results showed that public-sector practitioners were far less favorably disposed toward implementation of UIT and were more concerned about lack of diffusion, measurement issues, and costs of implementation. Study 2 utilized a policy-capturing design to examine the factors public-sector practitioners consider most important when making simulated decisions about UIT adoption (n = 33). Of the factors examined, test type was found to be the most influential in decisions about implementing UIT

Understanding the Public School District Superintendent: Self-perceptions and Role Expectations of Six White Superintendents From Massachusetts School Districts

Given the position of school districts within the education ecosystem, superintendents are important to educational leadership discussions, particularly systems change or improvement discourse. Superintendents manage operations, oversee policy implementation, and affect the climate as well as strategic direction of multimillion-dollar school district organizations. Additionally, superintendents manage district staff and liaise with a governance body towards maximizing student outcomes as they are accountable for educating millions of students in the United States. Nevertheless, the district chief executive is under researched in education leadership literature. Moreover, superintendent identity is overlooked within education leadership research. This dissertation argues the lack of research centered on superintendents’ perceptions of themselves as school district administrators precludes a full appreciation of the superintendency. Further, without consideration of superintendent identity, theories of transformation and effective district leadership are incomplete. Thus, this dissertation’s purpose is to present results from an investigation of six White Massachusetts school district superintendents’ self-perceptions and role expectations. In addition, this dissertation study considered influences on these superintendents’ identities and leadership practices. This qualitative study, informed by phenomenological research methods, utilized the lens of identity theory to understand these participants as superintendents. From this research investigation, the findings revealed participants’ primary self-perception as superintendent was leader. Within this study, participants described superintendent identity in terms of state, district and local community contexts as promoting student achievement. Participants in this research investigation revealed they grappled with a tension resulting from connecting their self-concept to superintendent identity. Further, this study provides these superintendents’ self-perceptions and role expectations associated with education reform. In conclusion, this study extends the discourse regarding superintendent leadership while offering three major research contributions with implications for policy and practice: (1) a description of superintendent identity, including these superintendents’ characterizations of internalized role expectations, and self-perceptions as possible explanations of their leadership practices and; (2) conceptualizations of superintendent leadership of education reform from a sample of district chief executives, including that of filter or buffer; (3) a framework for understanding the superintendent through the lens of superintendent identity

Changing an Unfavorable Employer Reputation: The Roles of Recruitment Message-Type and Familiarity with Employer

An unfavorable employer reputation can impair an organization’s ability to recruit job seekers. The present research employed a four-week longitudinal experimental design to investigate whether recruitment messages can positively change an existing unfavorable employer reputation. Two hundred and twenty-two (222) job seekers rated their perceptions of an organization before and after being randomly assigned to receive a series of high- or low-information recruitment messages. As expected, job seekers receiving high-information messages changed their perceptions more than job seekers who were exposed to low-information messages. In addition, job seekers’ initial familiarity with the employer was negatively related to change in their perceptions of employer reputation. Finally, there was some evidence that job seekers’ familiarity with the employer influenced the impact of different recruitment messages. Implications for research and practice are discussed

A Public-Domain Personality Item Bank For Use With The Raymark, Schmit, and Guion (1997) PPRF

Presented is the development of a repository of work-related personality items that may be used to assess job-related traits identified by the Personality-Related Position Requirements Form (PPRF: Raymark, Schmit, & Guion, 1997). Analyses of the item pool administered to a sample (n = 412) of trade apprentices showed evidence to support the12 work-related Big 5 sub-dimensions identified by the PPRF. A smaller validity study (n = 47) suggested that personality dimensions identified as job-related by the PPRF were related to important job-related outcomes