Experiential Learning in Industrial/Organizational Psychology: A Case Study

Experiential learning is considered a powerful tool for learning in college. Community-based research is one type of experiential learning that has been used to learn research skills in a variety of social science disciplines. The current case study was conducted as an experiential learning research project. A team of six students and a professor from a small Midwestern college conducted community-based research with a large agribusiness company headquartered near the college. The goal of the project was to create an effective employee-selection process for this firm and to provide an effective learning experience for students. This included development of a situational judgment test, cognitive ability testing, and personality assessment. The article focuses on steps taken to organize a community- based research project, the steps required to develop an effective selection process, and an evaluation of the experience from students, the community partners, and faculty

The mediating relationship of self-awareness on supervisor burnout and workgroup Civility & Psychological Safety: A multilevel path analysis

The purpose of this study was to examine whether managerial self-awareness (defined as degree of agreement between self and subordinate ratings of leaders’ behaviors) mediates the relationship between supervisor burnout and supervised workgroup climate. Using an HLM approach, supervisor emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment exhibited significant indirect relationships with workplace Civility and Psychological Safety, via managerial self-awareness. No direct relationships between supervisor burnout and workgroup climate were found, suggesting that self-awareness may be an important mediator for individual characteristics of leaders previously thought to be non-significant. Additional post hoc comparisons indicated that workgroups with supervisors who over-rated their own performance behaviors reported the lowest levels of Civility and Psychological Safety compared to workgroups with supervisors who accurately rated or under-rated their own performance behaviors. However, supervisors that under-rated their own performance reported the highest levels of burnout, highlighting the importance of self-awareness (accurately rating oneself) in relation to individual and group outcomes. The relationships between supervisor burnout, managerial self-awareness, and workgroup perceptions of Civility and Psychological Safety differed when considering the directionality of self-other rating agreement, with the negative impact of burnout at the supervisor level having a more direct impact on the workgroup level perceptions of Civility and Psychological Safety when the workgroup is managed by an under-rater, as opposed to an accurate- or over-rater. Practically, organizations should consider the role of managerial self-awareness in influencing subordinate performance and creating desirable work climates. Also, this study suggests the effects of burnout extend beyond the individual and have significant implications for the performance of those in the supervision of the burned out manager