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Syllabus
Industrial-Organizational Psychology
Psychology 255
May 2009
Instructor:
Email address:
Gordon B. Schmidt
schmi306@msu.edu
Supervising Faculty Member: Cathleen E. McGreal, Ph.D. mcgreal@msu.edu
Questions about technical aspects of the course with ANGEL or the lectures in Breeze:
CALL MSU HELP LINE:
1-800-500-1554 or (517) 355-2345
Course Description
We all spend a major portion of our lives at work. Psychology 255 addresses the behavior of
people at work from their point of entry into the workforce to retirement. The course focuses
both on understanding the psychological bases of work behavior and on the practices that are
used to create a good fit between the characteristics of people and the demands of work. The
class addresses issues such as selection, placement, training, work motivation, job satisfaction,
leadership, teamwork, and work-family balance.
The Online Nature of the Course
Overview: This course will be held entirely online through the ANGEL class system at MSU.
There will be no classes or tests at any physical location on campus. All lectures are on the
course web page posted on Angel and all graded work will be submitted through the systems that
exist on ANGEL such as the “drop box.” Each assignment will tell you the ANGEL method it
uses for submission. Since this course is completely online, you will need to make sure that you
have a consistent access to the Internet throughout the time span of the course. A high speed
Internet connection is required for this course. For quizzes and the final exam a high speed
Internet connection is required because the exams are timed. High-speed connections will
minimize the loading times between test items, and thus maximize the amount of time students
have to actually answer the questions. In addition, the lecture materials using slides and voice
would be very slow on normal dial-up connections. The lectures in this course have been
developed by Prof. Dan Ilgen and Prof. Cathleen McGreal.
Course Management System: MSU’s on-line course management system is called ANGEL.
The ANGEL site can be accessed at: www.ANGEL.msu.edu. Students will need to use their
MSU user names and passwords to enter the site. If you do not already have these, please
contact the MSU Registrar’s Office (517-432-3952) and one will be assigned to you. A brief
orientation to ANGEL is described later in the syllabus. If you have any questions about the
technical aspects of the course related to or resulting from working within ANGEL, please
contact the MSU Help-Line at (517) 355-2345 or 1-800-500-1554.
Contacting Instructor: The two primary forms of contact are through e-mail and scheduled
chat room office hours. I will be have office hours both through the course chat room and e-mail
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on Thursdays from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm each week during the course of the term, May 18th
through July 2nd. I will respond as soon as possible to e-mails during office hours, depending on
the number of individuals who come to the chat room. In addition to office hours, I will read
and respond to e-mails sent through the ANGEL system once a day during normal business
hours on Monday through Friday when the class is in session. Please be advised that e-mails sent
through means other than ANGEL e-mail may not be monitored regularly. Communication in
the course occurs through ANGEL.
Academic Integrity
Every student is held responsible for knowing the academic integrity policy at MSU. The policy
can be found at http://www.msu.edu/unit/ombud/RegsOrdsPolicies.html Here are some examples
of academic dishonesty:
• Having another student provide academic assistance or coaching during an online quiz or test
• Having another person take a quiz or test for you
• Copying questions or answers from your online quiz or test and sharing them with another
student
• Copying questions or answers from your online quiz or test and posting them on a website for
others to view
• Getting questions and/or answers from students who have already taken an exam or quiz you
are scheduled to take
• Collaborating with other students on projects or assignments when collaboration is not part of
the assignment or when you do not have your instructor’s permission to collaborate.
Information about cheating (from the student’s point of view) can be found at:
http://www.msu.edu/unit/ombud/dishonestystud.html
I apologize for dwelling on cheating. Unfortunately, online cheating occurs and is attempted
unsuccessfully far too often. There are student-based websites that seem to foster and promote
academic dishonesty. Please be advised that these sites are known to faculty members who are
updated on their contents by honest students and others on a regular basis. Specifically, you are
not authorized to use the http://www.allmsu.com web site to complete any course work.
Please be aware that ANGEL tracks all student login information. For example, it tracks when
you have logged into ANGEL and when you have logged out. It also tracks when you begin
your quiz and when your quiz is submitted. This is helpful for the instructors because it allows us
to resolve issues if there is a problem with the ANGEL system in terms of logging on and/or
gaining access to the various sections of the site. Tracking can also help us resolve disputes
about exams and assignments, particularly those that are timed. ANGEL tracking also can reveal
academic misconduct.
Ignorance or misunderstanding of the honesty policy will not serve as an excuse for academic
dishonesty. Scholastic dishonesty will be prosecuted to the fullest extent in this class. Please
note that the general penalty grade policy at MSU has changed and become more strict and
punitive toward cheaters. If you are found to have cheated, you will get a grade of 0.0 in the
class, and a letter about the incident will be sent to the dean of your college and to the dean of the
College of Social Sciences at Michigan State University. This description of the incident will be
added to the student’s academic record, where it will remain, unless the student successfully
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grieves the allegation. Thus, cheating has a significant impact on your current grade and your
student permanent record. The majority of students work hard to earn good grades. It isn't fair to
honest students to give a cheater the same grade.
Required Textbook:
Landy, F. J., & Conte, J. M. (2007). Work in the 21st century: An introduction to industrial and
organizational psychology Second Edition. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. The book is
available through the bookstore on the campus at Michigan State University,
http://www.spartanbook.com/ (go to secure online ordering), the Student Book Store
http://www.sbsmsu.com/ and other area bookstores such as Ned’s and The College Store.
Make sure your book has a picture of a helicopter on the cover! The first edition has a different
cover.
Units:
When you first enter the course, you will see two folders. The first says, Start Here. It contains
the Course Orientation which helps you learn about the ANGEL environment. The second
folder says, Course Content.
Course Orientation:
ANGEL Technology Walk Through
All students will be required to take an ANGEL training course located in the “Course
Orientation” module folder. This is a tutorial of how to use the ANGEL system and navigate it
for this course. At the end of the tutorial, there will be a short quiz that tests your knowledge of
the material covered in the training course. You will need to click on the Orientation quiz link to
access this quiz. YOU WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO BEGIN THE COURSE UNTIL
YOU COMPLETE THIS QUIZ! You are required to score 90% on this quiz in order to pass
and be allowed to continue with the course. If you do not achieve a score of 90% on the first try,
you will need to re-review the ANGEL training and re-take the quiz until you achieve a score of
90%. The quiz can be re-taken as many times as necessary to achieve this score. Please note that
the quiz score will not be included in your grade – it will only be used for training purposes and
as a gateway into the course.
I have made this training course a course requirement for your benefit as well as mine. I want to
make sure that you are comfortable using the ANGEL system. If you are not trained in the use
of ANGEL, you may come across many problems that could have been avoided had you been
trained on using this on-line course system.
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Course Contents
When this folder is unlocked you will find that there are folders with various labels. For
example, you will see a folder containing the discussion forum for your team lounge which is
described elsewhere in this syllabus. The key folders are those labeled by Week. Each
Weekly folder contains the Units that must be completed by that Week of the semester.
The Weekly folder also contains the Work Exercise for that week. Each unit contains:
Learning Objectives: Learning objectives for the lectures and chapters will be posted for each
module. These objectives outline the topics to which you should pay close attention to in the
lecture and text, as these are the topics that will be covered heavily in exams. Therefore, you
should focus on this material when reading the textbook chapters.
Unit Readings: Inside this folder you will find a page with the Assigned Readings from the
Textbook.
Unit Lecture: This is the lecture for the chapter. When you go into this folder and click on the
Lecture Title then you will see a PowerPoint screen with a summary of the topics on the left
hand side. This is an audio lecture. You will hear the lecture while watching the screen. There
is time at the beginning and end of each screen’s lecture for you to look at the screen, get ready
to take notes, write down questions to email your instructor and so on. The audio text is linked
to each power point slide. If you go back to a slide earlier in the presentation, the audio will
begin with that slide.
Unit Quiz: When you have mastered the material in a unit and are ready to take the unit quiz,
find the quiz at the end of the Unit Folder. Read the directions carefully because the quizzes are
timed.
Quiz/Exam Assessment Method
The exam method used in the Department of Psychology is one that enhances exam security
during online testing. It is called “Single-question, no backtrack”. In this type of exam only one
question is delivered at a time. A student makes a decision about that question, answers the
question and submits it. Then the next question is presented. It is not possible to go back to
previous questions. Instructors can ask questions knowing that a question “gives away” the
answer to a previous question. Of course, this could never happen on a regular paper-and-pencil
test.
This method requires a different strategy for test taking. You may have learned to answer all the
questions that you know and then go back to the others. This strategy is not possible in a singlequestion, no backtrack testing method. On the other hand, since this course uses open-book
testing many students find that those questions about which they had doubts are the ones that
they want to look up in the book. A quick look to refresh their memories and they can proceed
with confidence.
If single-question no backtrack (open book testing) sounds like a method with which you will be
comfortable then this online Psych 255 class is probably a good fit for your assessment style.
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Basic Course Schedule:
This course runs for a total of seven weeks. The typical summer session week will consist of
lectures and textbook assignments for two units, a quiz taken for each unit, and a work exercise
component. The topic schedule by week is given below. See the grading and work exercise
sections for more information.
Week 1 (May 18- May 24)
Unit 1: World View of an I-O Psychologist (Text: Ch 1)
Unit 2: Basic Research Methods in I-O Psychology (Text: 2.1-2.3 )
Week 2 (May 26- May 31)
Unit 3: Industrial Psychology: Individual Differences in Mental Abilities, Physical
Abilities and Personality (Text: 3.1-3.2 )
Unit 4: Industrial Psychology: Assessing Individuals (Text: 3.3-3.5, 2.4 )
Week 3 (June 1- June 7)
Unit 5: Industrial Psychology: Performance and Performance Measurement
(Text: 4.1, 4.2 and Ch. 5 )
Unit 6: Industrial Psychology: Job Analysis and Evaluation
(Text: 4.3-4.5 and pgs. 430-434)
Week 4: (June 8- June 14)
Unit 7: Industrial Psychology: Staffing Decisions (Text: Ch 6 )
Unit 8: Industrial Psychology: Training and Development (Text: Ch 7 )
Week 5: (June 15- June 21)
Unit 9 : Organizational Psychology: Work Motivation (Text: Ch 8 )
Unit 10: Organizational Psychology: Attitudes, Emotions and Work
(Text: Ch 9 and 10.4)
Week 6: (June 22- June 28)
Unit 11: Organizational Psychology: Leadership and Teams in the Workplace
(Text: Ch 12 and 13)
Unit 12: Organizational Psychology: Fairness and Diversity in the Workplace
(Text: Ch 11)
Week 7: (June 29- July 2)
Unit 13: Organizational Psychology: Workplace Organization and Human Factors
(Text: Ch 14 )
Unit 14 (optional): The Work Environment: Stress and Workplace Health (Text: Ch 10 )
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Work Teams and Teamwork: Everyone in the course will be assigned to a team with
approximately five members. The team rosters will be listed in ANGEL. Each team will also be
assigned a Team Chat Room and a Team Discussion Forum. Your chatroom and discussion
forum is identified by your team number. The chat room allows your team to work together
synchronously, and the discussion forum asynchronously. Also e-mail communication between
team members may be useful. During the course, there are three work exercises to be done in
teams. It is important that you communicate with your team members very soon after the
course begins. The first team exercise (Work Exercise 3) will open on Monday, June 1st. For
optimal use of your team time, it is suggested that your team schedule a time to hold a chat
room discussion of that exercise as soon as possible after the exercise opens to organize how
to work on the exercise. Introductions and scheduling of when you will first “meet” to go over
Work Exercise 3 should have been done before June 1st.
Chat Rooms and Discussion Forums: Each student will be assigned to a chat room and
discussion forum specific to the team in which he or she is a member. Both these spaces are
provided as a means for getting to know your team members and for working with your team
members on work exercises assigned to your team. Since experience shows that chat rooms and
discussion rooms often become cluttered with a large number of messages, the following three
sets of chat rooms and discussion forums have been created for each team. One set is a general
chat and discussion forum and the other two are earmarked for specific team projects. Each is
mentioned below.
Set One: Team Lounge: The Team Lounge Chat Room and the Team Lounge Discussion forum
are available to the team members for the duration of the course once students are assigned to
teams at the end of Week 2 (May 31st through July 2nd). Team members can access these areas at
any time.
Set Two: SME (Subject Matter Experts): The SME chat room and discussion forum should be
reserved for work on the Subject Matter Experts team project (Work Exercise 3). These spaces
will open up at 9:00 a.m. on Monday, June 1st and will close a 2:00 p.m. on Monday June 8th
when Work Exercise 3 is due. The areas close so that people do not inadvertently leave
messages in this space when working on later exercises.
Set Three: HR Newsletter: The HR Newsletter chat room and discussion forum should be used
for work on the newsletter. This work consists of Work Exercises 4 and 5. The spaces will open
on Monday June 8th when Work Exercise 4 opens and will close when the newsletter is to be
completed, June 22nd.
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Grading
Your grade will be made up of two major components: Tests and Work Exercises.
Tests
Two forms of tests will be given—quizzes and a final exam. Both have strict time limits. Items
on the exams will be a multiple choice, as will be the final. Quizzes will cover the material for
specific units drawn from both the lecture and the text assignments for that unit. The final exam
will also cover readings and lectures and will be inclusive for the whole course. For both quizzes
and the final exam test, the items on each individual’s exam will be randomly drawn from a pool
of items at the time that the student opens his or her exam. The items in the pool have been
designed so as to be similar in difficulty level. Exams, both quizzes and the final exam, are
open book. As described earlier in the syllabus, when you begin the exam, items will be
presented one at a time with the next item appearing only after you have submitted your answer
to the previous one. Once an answer is submitted for an item, the item cannot be revisited.
There is one chance and one chance only to answer an item. Finally, the exams have strict time
limits. The random selection of items, presenting items sequentially without the chance to return
to them, and the time limits are all used to reduce cheating. The orientation quiz that you took to
learn about the course and ANGEL was set up to provide you with an example of how the tests
will operate. Quizzes and the final exam require a high-speed connection due to the timed nature
of the quizzes and exam.
Quizzes
There are 13 graded quizzes, one for each mandatory unit. Your lowest quiz grade of the
semester will be dropped when computing the overall quiz component of your grade. Thus your
quiz grade will be based on the scores on your 12 highest scoring quizzes.
The quizzes are 10 questions long with 15 minutes given to complete them. The items will be all
multiple choice. The quizzes for a week’s units will be available to you on ANGEL at 9:00 a.m
Eastern Standard Time. on Monday of that week. During the week, the quizzes will remain
available until you open a quiz. Once you open a quiz, you will have exactly 15 minutes to
complete it. If you do not complete it within 15 minutes, the quiz will close and any items not yet
completed will be considered wrong. On Friday at 2:00 p.m EDT. all further access to the
week’s quizzes will be denied. The quizzes can be taken at any time you choose between
Monday at 9:00 a.m. and Friday at 2:00 p.m. of the week in which the unit is assigned. Quizzes
not finished before Friday at 2:00 p.m.will be given a grade of 0.0 for all but the rare cases in
which there is a personal emergency. In cases of emergencies, the instructor must be notified
prior to the due date and time if there are extenuating circumstances requiring exceptions be
made. The quizzes contain both multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank items. Quiz questions are
drawn at random from a large test bank when you log in to take the quiz. Therefore, the same
numbered quiz will contain different items for different students depending what items are drawn
to make up the quiz for each student. These quizzes will test your knowledge of both the lectures
and the readings assigned for the unit on which the quiz is based. In Weeks 1 through 6 there are
two quizzes due per week, and in Week 7 there is one. All due date information can be found on
the course calendar.
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Final Exam
The final exam will take 2 hours to complete and will draw on information from all 13 required
units. All questions on the final exam will be in the multiple-choice format. The final exam will
take place during Week 7 on Thursday July 2nd , the traditional day for Summer Session One
final exams. The test will become available to be taken at exactly 9:00 a.m. on Thursday July 2nd
and will close at 9:00 p.m. on the same day. The final exam MUST be taken during this time
window, and each student will have exactly two hours to complete it. You will be able to choose
the two-hour block within the time period that best fits your schedule but you must be finished
on or before 9:00 p.m. Therefore, if you want the full two hours for the exam, you must access
it by 7:00 p.m. on July 2nd.
Technical Concerns with Examinations and Other Assignments
Please note that in order to prevent the loss of your exam information in case of a computer or
internet malfunction, the exams will have an autosave feature that allows you to save your
responses every 30 minutes. In the past, students have noticed that after saving the exam, exam
items appear to have been deleted from the screen- that is not the case. Your answers are still
saved even though they do not appear on the screen. Please do not go back and try to
complete those items again, as your original responses have been saved, and you only have a
limited amount of time to complete the exam.
Occasionally, students will experience technical difficulties with ANGEL during exams. These
difficulties are greatly reduced if a high speed Internet connection is used. Dial-up connections
lead to difficulties because of the timed nature of testing. Please make every effort to use a highspeed connection during the final exam.
However, if you do experience technical problems with ANGEL during the exam, please
contact the MSU helpline (1-800-500-1554) and your instructor, Gordon Schmidt,
(schmi306@msu.edu) immediately. On rare occasions, due to technical problems an exam
may need to be re-set by your instructors or technical assistants. In these cases, the student must
still complete the exam on the originally scheduled exam day before the exam deadline. Students
whose exams are reset will receive a 0.0 on the exam if it is not completed by the deadline.
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The Work Exercises
During this course we will being doing several applied exercises to help illustrate the concepts
that you learn in lecture and in the textbook. Over the course of Weeks 1 through 6, you will do
several tasks that we have related to being an employee in a newspaper office. Some tasks are for
individual “employees” and others are for teams . Your experience will culminate in the creation
of an HR Newsletter, which will be built during Weeks 4 and 5 in groups of four or five. Each
work exercise is briefly described in the work exercise section of this syllabus. More detailed
information about work exercises appears in the instructions for each specific exercise contained
within the appropriate week’s folder on ANGEL.
The schedule for when work exercises close differs from the schedule for quizzes. In all cases,
work exercises will be due at 2:00 pm EDT on Monday. This will allow teams to work on the
work exercises over the weekend, if needed.
Work Exercise Schedule
Week 1: - You will be asked to fill out a form with several demographic questions as well as
some questions about your experience with online courses in the past. These questions will be
similar to demographic questions that are often asked by employers. All information that you
provide will be kept confidential. (Work Exercise 1: Demographic Data; Due Tuesday 2:00 pm,
May 26th)
Week 2 - You will take a selection battery that contains several types of questions often used in
real employee selection tests that companies give, as well as some questions that assess skills
that are specifically newspaper-related. (Work Exercise 2: Selection Battery; Due Monday 2:00
pm, June 1st ).
Week 3 – Prior to week 3, you will be assigned to a group with three to four other students and
asked to develop a plan for interviewing a subject matter expert in the newspaper field. This
includes structuring the interview, making a list of needed questions and deciding who will ask
what questions. You will be working with these same individuals for the Human Resource
Newsletter group exercises. (Work Exercise 3: Subject Matter Expert (SME); Due Monday 2:00
pm, June 8th)
Week 4- For week four, your group will be asked to begin to develop a Human Resource
Newsletter You will develop a HR newsletter on a topic in I/O psychology chosen by your
group. In Week 4, your group will have to make a decision on the overall topic area and write an
introductory letter explaining the importance of the topic for business and describing how each
article fits that topic. You will need to submit to the TA what your general topic area will be and
which article each group member will be summarizing. Your group’s topic and each team
member’s chosen article in the topic area will be submitted to fulfill Work Exercise 4. (Work
Exercise 4: HR Newsletter Subject; Due Monday 2:00 pm, June 15th)
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Week 5 – Your group will finish the HR newsletter exercise. You will develop a HR newsletter
on a topic in I/O psychology chosen by your group in Week 4. Your group will have to make an
introductory letter explaining the importance of the topic for business and how each article fits
that topic. You want to make a coherent and informative newsletter. Each group member needs
to write an article summary. (Work Exercise 5: HR Newsletter; Due Monday 2:00 pm, June
22nd)
Week 6 – With the HR Newsletter finished you will asked to reflect on your group experiences.
You will first be asked to fill out a typical work survey of satisfaction. You will then be asked to
reflect on your team experience in response to some short answer questions that will tie your
experiences to concepts that have been discussed in lecture and the textbook. This exercise is
graded only in terms of whether or not it is completed with some effort put in to reflecting on the
team process. It is an individual exercise. There are no right or wrong answers. (Work Exercise
6: Group Reflection; Due Monday 2:00 pm, June 29th)
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Graded Material in Course
Grades in the class are based on three sets of materials. There are quizzes, a final exam, and
work exercises. Each is described below.
Points for Graded Materials
The course grade will be based on points distributed over the following items listed below. Note
that three of the items are starred. These involve work by your team, and all on the team will
receive the same score. Teamwork comprises 15.0 % of your total grade. Quiz, work exercise
(where applicable), and final exam grades will be based on a scale where 90% + = 4.0; 85-89 =
3.5; 80-84 = 3.0; 75-79 = 2.5; 70-75=2.0; 65-69 = 1.5; 60-65 = 1.0; 55-59 = 0.5; below 55 = 0.0.
The final semester grade may be curved if necessary, but, in no case, will the grade based on the
curve lower a student’s grade below that based on the percent distribution described above.
Tests
Points
Quizzes (30 points each x 12)
Final exam (75 items)
360
450
Work Exercises
WE1: Demographic data (10 points)
WE2: Selection battery (10 points)
WE3; Subject matter expert (SME)
Interview (40 points)*
WE4: HR Newsletter Subject (10 points)*
WE5: HR Newsletter (100 points)*
WE6: Group Reflection (20 points)
190
Total Points for Course
1000
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Assignments Due
The table below lists all Assignments, the time the assignments open up (if applicable), and the
date and time they are due.
STOPPED HERE
Assignment
Opens
Due/Closes
th
Quizzes 1 and 2
Monday, May 18 , 9:00 am
Friday, May 22nd, 2:00 pm
Work Exercise 1
Monday, May 18th, 9:00 am
Monday, May 26th, 2:00 pm
Quizzes 3 and 4
Tuesday*, May 26th, 9:00 am Friday, May 29th , 2:00 pm
Work Exercise 2
Tuesday*, May 26th 9:00 am Monday, June 1st, 2:00 pm
Quizzes 5 and 6
Monday, June 1st, 9:00 am
Friday, June 5th, 2:00 pm
st
Work Exercise 3
Monday, June 1 , 9:00 am
Monday, June 8th, 2:00 pm
Quizzes 7 and 8
Monday, June 8th , 9:00 am
Friday, June 12th , 2:00 pm
th
Work Exercise 4
Monday, June 8 , 9:00 am
Monday, June 15th, 2:00 pm
Quizzes 9 and 10
Monday, June 15th, 9:00 am
Friday, June 19th, 2:00 pm
Work Exercise 5
Monday, June 15th, 9:00 am
Monday, June 22nd, 2:00 pm
nd
Quizzes 11 and 12
Monday, June 22 , 9:00 am
Friday, June 26th, 2:00 pm
Work Exercise 6
Monday, June 22nd, 9:00 am
Monday, June 29th, 2:00pm
th
Quiz 13
Monday, June 29 , 9:00 am
Thursday, July 2nd, 9:00 pm
Final Exam
Thursday, July 2nd , 9:00 am
Thursday, July 2nd, 9:00 pm
*
Note: Activities normally activated on Monday are on Tuesday because of Memorial Day.
Accommodations for Disabilities: Students with disabilities should contact the Resource Center
for Persons with Disabilities to establish reasonable accommodations. For an appointment with a
counselor, call (517 353-9642 (voice) or (517) 355-1293 (TTY).
Observing a Religious Holiday: You may make up coursework missed to observe a religious
holiday. To do this, you make arrangements in advance with the instructor.
Other Accommodations: It is expected that students will complete all assignments by the time
they are due. In rare cases, there may need to be exceptions. Students are responsible for
contacting the instructor by e-mail through ANGEL prior to the deadline for an assignment when
there is an emergency to discuss if or whether an accommodation will be made. Requests for
exceptions not made in a timely manner may be denied.