| science | Approach that involves the understanding, prediction, and control of some phenomenon of interest.
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| hypothesis | Prediction about relationship(s) among variables of interest.
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| disinterestedness | Characteristic of scientists who should be objective and uninfluenced by biases or prejudices when conducting research.
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| expert witness | Witness in a lawsuit who is permitted to voice opinions about organizational practices.
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| Daubert challenge | Challenge in which opposing lawyers may ask the judge to prevent the expert witness from voicing an opinion in front of a jury, arguing that the jury will be swayed by an expert testifying about a topic that cannot be considered a legitimate scientific topic.
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| peer reviewed | Process in which research is subjected to scientific scrutiny by peer researchers who evaluate the research and consider plausible alternative explanations.
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| research design | Design that provides the overall structure or architecture for the research study; allows investigators to conduct scientific research on a phenomenon of interest.
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| experimental design | Design in which participants are randomly assigned to different conditions.
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| quasi-experimental design | Design in which participants are assigned to different conditions, but random assignment to conditions is not possible.
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| nonexperimental design | Design that does not include any "treatment" or assignment to different conditions.
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| observational design | Design in which the researcher observes employee behavior and systematically records what is observed.
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| survey design | Research strategy in which participants are asked to complete a questionnaire or survey.
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| quantitative methods | Methods that rely on tests, rating scales, questionnaires, and physiological measures, and that yield numerical results.
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| qualitative methods | Methods that rely on observation, interview, case study, and analysis of diaries or written documents and that produce flow diagrams and narrative descriptions of events or processes.
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| introspection | Early scientific method in which the participant was also the experimenter, who would record his or her experiences in completing an experimental task; considered very subjective by modern standards.
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| triangulation | Approach in which the researchers seek converging information from different sources.
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| job analysis | A process used by I-O psychologists to develop an understanding of a job by identifying the duties of the job and the human attributes necessary to perform them.
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| generalize | To apply the results from one study or sample to other participants or situations.
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| experimental control | Characteristic of research in which possible confounding influences that might make results less reliable or harder to interpret are eliminated; often easier to establish in laboratory studies than in field studies.
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| statistical control | Using statistical techniques to control for the influence of certain variables. Such control allows researchers to concentrate exclusively on the primary relationships of interest.
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| descriptive statistics | Statistics that summarize, organize, and describe a sample of data.
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| measure of central tendency | Statistic that indicates where the center of a distribution is located. Mean, median, and mode are measures of central tendency.
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| variability | The extent to which scores in a distribution vary.
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| skew | The extent to which scores in a distribution are lopsided or tend to fall on the left or right side of the distribution.
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| mean | The arithmetic average of the scores in a distribution; obtained by summing all of the scores in a distribution and dividing by the sample size.
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| mode | The most common or frequently occurring score in a distribution.
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| median | The middle score in a distribution.
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| inferential statistics | Statistics used to aid the researcher in testing hypotheses and making inferences from sample data to a larger sample or population.
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| statistical significance | Indicates that the probability of the observed statistic is less than the stated significance level adopted by the researcher (commonly p5.05). A statistically significant finding indicates that, if the null hypothesis were true, the results found are unlikely to occur by chance, and the null hypothesis is rejected.
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| statistical power | The likelihood of finding a statistically significant difference when a true difference exists.
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| measurement | Assigning numbers to characteristics of individuals or objects according to rules.
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| correlation coefficient | Statistic assessing the bivariate, linear association between two variables. Provides information about both the magnitude (numerical value) and the direction (1 or 2) of the relationship between two variables.
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| scatterplot | Graph that is used to plot the scatter of scores on two variables. Used to display the correlational relationship between two variables.
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| regression line | Straight line that best "fits" the scatterplot and describes the relationship between the variables in the graph; can also be presented as an equation that specifies where the line intersects the vertical axis and what the angle or slope of the line is.
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| linear | Relationship between two variables that can be depicted by a straight line.
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| nonlinear | Relationship between two variables that cannot be depicted by a straight line; sometimes called "curvilinear" and most easily identified by examining a scatterplot.
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| multiple correlation coefficient | Statistic that represents the overall linear association between several variables (e.g., cognitive ability, personality, experience) on the one hand, and a single variable (e.g., job performance) on the other hand.
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| meta-analysis | A statistical method for combining and analyzing the results from many studies to draw a general conclusion about relationships among variables.
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| statistical artifacts | Characteristics (e.g., small sample size, unreliable measures) of a particular study that distort the observed results. Researchers can correct for artifacts to arrive at a statistic that represents the "true" relationship between the variables of interest.
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| reliability | The consistency or stability of a measure.
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| validity | The accurateness of inferences made based on test or performance data; also addresses the issue of whether a measure accurately and completely represents what was intended to be measured.
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| test-retest reliability | Form of reliability calculated by correlating measurements taken at time one with measurements taken at time two.
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| equivalent forms reliability | Form of reliability calculated by correlating measurements from a sample of individuals who complete two different forms of the same test.
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| internal consistency | Form of reliability that assesses how consistently the items of a test measure a single construct. Affected by the number of items in the test and the correlations among the test items.
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| generalizability theory | A sophisticated approach to the question of reliability that simultaneously considers all types of error in reliability estimates (e.g., test-retest, equivalent forms, and internal consistency).
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| predictor | The test chosen or developed to assess attributes (e.g., abilities) identified as important for successful job performance.
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| criterion | An outcome variable that describes important aspects or demands of the job; the variable that we predict when evaluating the validity of a predictor.
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| criterion-related validity | Validity approach that is demonstrated by correlating a test score with a performance measure. Improves researcher's confidence in the inference that people with higher test scores have higher performance.
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| validity coefficient | A correlation coefficient between a test score (predictor) and a performance measure (criterion).
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| predictive validity design | Criterion-related validity design in which there is a time lag between collection of the test data and the criterion data.
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| concurrent validity design | Criterion-related validity design in which there is no time lag between gathering the test scores and the performance data.
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| content-related validation design | Design that demonstrates that the content of the selection procedure represents an adequate sample of important work behaviors and activities and/or worker KSAOs defined by the job analysis.
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| construct validity | Validity approach in which investigators gather evidence to support decisions or inferences about psychological constructs; often begins with the investigators demonstrating that a test designed to measure a particular construct correlates with other tests in the predicted manner.
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| construct | A psychological concept or characteristic that a predictor or criterion is intended to measure. Examples of constructs are intelligence, personality, and leadership.
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