Discrepancy or difference measures of job-related role perceptions have long been employed as environmentally-based surrogate measures of occupational role stress (i.e., subjective role conflict and role ambiguity). The validity of these differences measures as alternate indices of role stess, however, has only been assumed. The present research attempted to address this deficiency. Employees (N = 297) of a large public service agency responded to questionnaires concerning role-related activities in their jobs as either caseworkers or clerks, and concerning job-related affective and behavioral states, such as job satisfaction, involvement, and performance. Four competing theoretical models which examined the relationships between discrepancy measures and the affective and behavioral measures were tested. These models were derived for current theoretical and empirical findings. The following conclusions can be drawn from the results of this research: (1) Discrepancy measures of role perceptions were not related to subjective measures of role stress. (2) Discrepancy scores played a relatively minor role in theory; most of their variability was determined by factors outside the models. (3) Subjective measures of role stress made a fairly substantial contribution to theory as a mediator between organizationally-relevant antecedent and outcome variables. (4) Some group differences were indicated which suggests that discrepancy measures of role perceptions may have been more valid in the clerical sample. Although the continued use of discrepancy measures as surrogates of role stress cannot be recommended, further research is needed to clarify possible occupational differences in the utility of discrepancy scores. The potential use of discrepancy measures of role perceptions as a tool to improve supervisor-subordinate communications was suggested.

The use of students to appraise the performance of college teachers has been questioned by educators because of concerns over potential biasing factors relating to intrinsic characteristics of the students, such as reasons for taking the course, perceptions of progress or success in the course relative to expectations, and perceived course workload. However, the construct validity of questions asked to measure these potentially biasing constructs has not been systematically examined, thus casting a shadow on previously published causal models of the relationships among these factors. Cross-sample construct validation was conducted on five factors cited in the literature: prior interest in the subject matter, reason for taking the course, strength of motivation to take the course, perceived course workload or difficulty, and estimated relative progress in the course. A sixth factor of global teacher evaluation items was added to verify the relationship between ratings and the other five factors. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis showed that, of the five, only the workload/difficulty construct exhibited validity as a distinct construct. Prior interest, reason for taking the course, and strength of motivation were basically all components of a broader construct of desire or drive to take the course. Estimated progress turned out to have two separate components, one positive and student-related (satisfaction) and one negative and teacher-related (dissatisfaction).

This study investigated several factors that could influence the accuracy and reliability of job evaluation ratings. Two of these factors were training and amount of information. The subjects rated a series of 23 jobs on various dimensions. The results indicate that training had little effect on job ratings. Amount of information, however, had a consistent effect on the results. Subjects who were presented with greater amounts of information were generally more reliable and accurate. Procedures proposed by Cronbach (1955) and Jackson (1972) were used to measure accuracy. In addition, three rating biases (halo, leniency, and restriction of range) were conceptualized and operationalized in terms of accuracy. The results did vary somewhat depending on the measure being used. Implications concerning the study of accuracy are discussed.

Recent research with the PAQ that investigated the ability of job-naive raters to make PAQ ratings based on limited job information found average interrater reliabilities for item ratings in the .40 range (Jones, Main, Butler, & Johnson, 1982). While admitting that this represented generally low agreement among raters, Jones et al. deemed these data adequate because the corresponding dimension score reliabilities averaged in the "acceptable" range of .60. The argument proposes that translating item ratings to dimension scores negates the necessity of obtaining reliable job analysis data at the item level. This study took issue with this position and empirically investigated the relationship betwen PAQ item and dimension reliability. Random data were generated to simulate PAQ item ratings for 1000 pairs of raters in each of four conditions of data generation. In each condition, a true profile was generated and the items evidencing agreement on the rating of Does Not Apply (DNA) were identified. A pair of simulated ratings was generated that held the DNA items constant and varied the reliability of the remaining responses. Each condition generated data that reflected different levels of reliability on the non-DNA items. Interrater reliability coefficients (Pearson r's) were calculated for these simulated item data and the corresponding dimension scores. Results indicated that, even with random data, average reliability coefficients for item-level data could be found in the .40 range; in addition, an average dimension score reliability in the .60 range was found when the true reliability for the items that were actually rated was .30. It was also found that as the number of DNA agreements increased, so did the item reliability, but the dimension reliability was essentially unaffected. Furthermore, as the number of DNA agreements increased and the item reliability increased, the reliability of the items not exhibiting DNA agreement was unchanged. Thus, reliability estimates that included a large number of DNA agreements tended to overestimate the reliability of the non-DNA ratings. It was concluded that reliability estimates, for both items and dimensions, of the magnitude reported by Jones et al. are inadequate, especially when the influence of the DNA rating is taken into consideration.

Jones, Main, Butler, and Johnson (1982) stated that job-naive raters provided with only narrative job descriptions can produce valid and reliable Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ) ratings. This implies that traditional time- and labor-intensive methods of collecting job analysis information (e.g., interviews, direct observation) are not necessary in order to accurately complete the PAQ. However, PAQ ratings in the Jones et al. study were not validated against an external standard, thereby making the unambiguous interpretation of their results impossible. To determine the convergent validity of the Jones et al. approach, we provided job-naive raters with varying amounts of job descriptive information and, in some cases, prior practice rating the job with another job analysis instrument; PAQ ratings were validated against those of job analysts who were also job content experts. None of the reduced job descriptive information conditions, or practice, enabled job naive raters to obtain either acceptable levels of convergent validity with experts or high interrater reliability.

The present study provided a field test of the interrelationships among four phases of a selection system. The four phases included the pre-interview evaluation, the interview, the post-interview evaluation, and an assessment center exercise. Dipboye's (1982) social process model of the interview was employed as the theoretical framework with which to examine the first three phases of the selection system. The interrelationships among the first three phases and the assessment exercise were examined by assessing the increment in prediction of the results on the exercise obtained from using the pre-interview and interview phases of the study. Subjects were 34 interviewers and 164 applicants for the position of account executive, drawn from 19 branch offices of a large financial services corporation. Interviewers reviewed the applicants' application materials and then completed two questionnaires, one prior to the interview and the other following the interview. The job applicants completed a questionnaire following the interview. The questionnaires served as the primary method of data collection. The study tested six propositions based on the social process model and found, overall, good support for them. Three sub-models of the overall model were also tested using the technique of structural equation modeling, and they demonstrated good fit to the data. Assessing the interrelationships among the first three phases and the assessment exercise, very little variability in any of the results of the exercise was explained by information gathered at either the pre-interview or interview phases or by both of the phases considered together. Based on the results of the present study, I conclude that the social process model provides a promising theoretical framework in explaining the interrelationships among the first three phases of the present organization's selection system. There are a number of practical implications of the model for the way in which interviewers conduct interviews, and these implications are discussed. I also conclude that the assessment exercise appears to provide information about the applicants that is unique from that gained in the earlier phases of the selection process. The implications of this conclusion for the future use of advanced assessment procedures are discussed.

The narrow gap III-V semiconductors, InAs/AlSb/GaSb and InSb, exhibit an array of extreme physical properties, from the lightest effective mass and largest nonparabolicity of III-V semiconductors to heterostructure conduction band offsets ranging from -0.15 to +2.0 eV. In this work, I present three spectroscopic techniques which exploit these unusual properties to provide new insight into the physics of these materials. First, my measurement of cyclotron resonance in InAs/AlSb and InSb/AlInSb quantum wells was the first spectroscopic application of a new laser, the THz quantum cascade laser. The physical properties mentioned above put these materials into an experimentally accessible range, and InAs's high room temperature mobility and low temperature carrier density enabled us to explore a large temperature range. Previous investigations of other materials in limited temperature ranges had suggested what we confirmed: the cyclotron resonance effective mass increases with temperature, contrary to theoretical expectations. Second, we applied time resolved cyclotron resonance to InSb quantum wells for the first time. Because of InSb's large effective g-factor and nonparabolicity, time resolved cyclotron resonance enabled us to monitor the carrier relaxation and recombination from each Landau- and Zeeman-quantized state directly in time. This unprecedented level of detail could be extended to longer times to probe spin-flip relaxation, a significant parasitic process in quantum computation. Finally, I measured intersubband absorption in narrow InAs/AlSb quantum wells with widths from 10.5 to 1.8 nm. I observed the highest energy intersubband resonance in InAs/AlSb quantum wells: 650 meV at 77 K in a 1.8 nm well. I also performed detailed measurements of the temperature dependence of intersubband absorption and confirmed the correlation between the integrated intensity of intersubband absorption and the carrier distribution inferred from Shubnikov-de Haas and Hall measurements. Because of InAs/AlSb intersubband transitions' large accessible energy and temperature robustness, they are ideal candidates for resonant nonlinear optics. In particular, I discuss the potential of InAs/AlSb double quantum wells as a compact, room temperature, and coherent THz source. Such a source could revolutionize chemical sensing by providing convenient access to the strong fundamental vibrational fingerprints which all molecules have in the THz, potentially transforming applications from medicine to the military.

<p> Performance feedback has been widely used to improve performance, motivate employees, and increase organizational effectiveness. However, feedback research has yielded mixed results, ranging from improving performance to decreasing performance. The present study examined the impact of feedback perceptions on a unique sample, university art students, on fairness perceptions and subsequent performance.</p><p> Seventy-one art students at a western public university were surveyed immediately following a critique on a draft of their artwork. Feedback was measured by duration and positivity and converted into ratio format for analysis through hierarchical regression. Feedback acceptance and perceptions on fairness of feedback were surveyed. Final versions of the art project scores were collected at the end of the academic semester. In contrast to expectations, perceptions of fairness and feedback acceptance were neither significant moderators nor mediators of performance.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of Akron, 2005. / (UnM)AAI3184570. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-08, Section: B, page: 4520. Adviser: Rosalie J. Hall.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University OF MICHIGAN.