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Syllabus
Industrial-Organizational Psychology
Psychology 255
May 17 - July 1, 2010
Instructor:
Email address:
Juliya Golubovich
golubovi@msu.edu
Supervising Faculty Member: Cathleen E. McGreal, Ph.D.
Email address:
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 is about the behavior of
people at work from their point of entry into the workforce up to their 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 people’s characteristics and work’s demands. The class
addresses issues including 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 consistent access to the Internet throughout the time span of the course. A high speed
Internet connection is required for this course. A high speed Internet connection is especially
important for quizzes and the final exam because assessments are timed. High-speed
connections will minimize the loading times between test questions, and therefore maximize the
amount of time students have to actually answer the questions. In addition, the lecture materials
using slides and voice will be very slow on normal dial-up connections.
The lectures in this course were developed by Prof. Dan Ilgen and Prof. Cathleen McGreal.
Course Management System: MSU’s on-line course management system, ANGEL, 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
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course related to or resulting from working within ANGEL, please contact the MSU HelpLine at (517) 355-2345 or 1-800-500-1554.
Contacting Instructor: E-mail and scheduled chat room “office” hours will be students’
primary forms of contact with me. I will have office hours both through the course chat room and
e-mail on Thursdays from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm each week during the course of the term, May
17th through July 1st. 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 a quiz or exam 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 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 website 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 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 can also reveal
academic misconduct.
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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 MSU. A description of the incident will be added to the
student’s academic record, where it will remain, unless the student successfully 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 cheaters the same grade.
Required Textbook:
Landy, F. J., & Conte, J. M. (2010). Work in the 21st century: An introduction to industrial and
organizational psychology Third 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 wind turbine on the cover! (The second edition has a different
cover).
Units:
When you first enter the course, you will see a “Day 1 Orientation” folder. Start there.
Day 1 Orientation: ANGEL Technology Walk Through
All students will be required to complete a short tutorial/quiz on the basic requirements for this
course. YOU WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO BEGIN THE COURSE UNTIL YOU
COMPLETE IT! This tutorial/quiz is a requirement for unlocking the course content because if
you do not make sure you have the basic course requirements, you may come across many
problems during the course that could have easily been avoided.
Course Contents:
When course content is unlocked you will find that there are folders with various labels. The key
folders are those labeled by week. Each weekly folder contains the units that must be
completed by the end of that week. The weekly folder also contains the work exercise for
that week.
Each unit (and there are two units in each week) contains:
1. Learning Objectives: These objectives outline the topics you should pay close attention
to in the lecture and text, as these are the topics that will be covered heavily in exams.
2. Unit Readings: Inside this folder you will find the assigned readings from the textbook.
There will also be a link to the student companion site where you can go for additional
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resources, such as practice quizzes. Finally, there will be a PowerPoint presentation based
on the textbook, which you can choose to review if you wish (i.e., it is optional).
3. Unit Lecture: In this folder you will find the audio lecture (first link) for the unit and a
handout with the lecture slides which you can print out. When you go into this folder and
click on the first link, a page with the audio lecture will open. You will hear the lecture
while watching the screen. Be sure to take notes. The audio text is linked to each
PowerPoint slide. If you go back to a slide earlier in the presentation, the audio will
begin with that slide.
4. Unit Quiz: When you have mastered the material in a unit, take the unit quiz. A link to
the quiz will be 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 have doubts are the ones that
they want to look up in the book. After a quick look at the book to refresh their memories they
can proceed with confidence.
If single-question, no backtrack (and open book testing) sounds like a method with which you
will be comfortable then this online class is probably a good fit for your assessment style.
(Note to those reading the syllabus: the word you will need to enter during your course
orientation is “training.”)
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Basic Course Schedule:
This course runs for a total of seven weeks. The typical week will consist of lectures and
textbook assignments for two units, two quizzes (i.e., one quiz for each unit), a work exercise
component, and a discussion question. The topic schedule by week is shown below. See the
grading and work exercise sections for more information.
Week 1 (May 17- May 23)
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 24- May 30)
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 6)
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 7- June 13)
Unit 7: Industrial Psychology: Staffing Decisions (Text: Ch 6)
Unit 8: Industrial Psychology: Training and Development (Text: Ch 7)
Week 5: (June 14- June 20)
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 21- June 27)
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 28- July 1)
Unit 13: Organizational Psychology: Organization of Work Behavior
(Text: Ch 14)
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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 chat room and discussion forum is identified by your team
number. 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 Tuesday, 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 be 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 of which he/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
described 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. 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 Tuesday, June 1st and will close a 2:00 p.m. on Monday June 7th
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 (Work Exercises 4 and 5). The spaces will open on Monday June 7th
when Work Exercise 4 opens and will close when the newsletter is to be completed, June 21nd.
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Tests:
Two forms of tests will be given—quizzes and a final exam. Both have strict time limits.
Everything will be open book. 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 cumulative (that is, it will include material for the whole course). For both
quizzes and the final exam, the questions on each individual’s exam will be randomly drawn
from a pool of questions at the time that the student opens his/her exam. The questions in the
pool have been designed so as to be similar in difficulty level. As described earlier in the
syllabus, when you begin the exam, questions will be presented one at a time, with the next
question appearing only after you have submitted your answer to the previous one. Once an
answer is submitted for a question, that question cannot be revisited. There is one chance and
one chance only to answer a question. The random selection of questions, presenting questions
sequentially without the chance to return to them, and the time limits are all used to reduce
cheating. Quizzes and the final exam, because of their timed nature, require a high-speed
Internet connection.
Quizzes
There are 13 graded quizzes, one for each mandatory unit. Your two lowest quiz grades of the
semester will be dropped when computing the overall quiz component of your grade. Your quiz
grade will be based on your 11 highest quiz scores.
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. 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. On Friday
at 2:00 p.m EST all further access to the week’s quizzes will be denied.
Each quiz will have 10 questions (multiple choice and fill in the blank). These will be drawn at
random from a large test bank. Therefore, the same quiz will contain different questions for
different students depending on which questions are drawn from the test bank. 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 per week, and in Week 7 there is one.
All due date information can be found on the course calendar as well as in this syllabus.
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.
Note that if you begin the quiz less than 15 minutes before the quiz is due to close down
(Friday at 2:00 p.m. EST) you will not have the full 15 minutes to complete the quiz.
Quizzes not taken 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 to be
made.
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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 (75 of them) on the final exam will be in multiple choice format. The final
exam will take place during Week 7 on Thursday July 1st, 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 1st 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 1st.
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. Since your original responses will be
saved, please do not waste your limited time going back and trying to complete those questions
again.
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, Juliya Golubovich,
(golubovi@msu.edu) immediately. On rare occasions, due to technical problems, an exam may
need to be reset by your instructor. 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 you will be 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 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 within the
appropriate week’s folder on ANGEL.
The schedule for when work exercises close differs from the schedule for quizzes. 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 Monday 2:00 pm,
May 24th)
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 Tuesday 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 7th)
Week 4 - For week four, your group will be asked to begin to develop a Human Resource
Newsletter. You will develop an 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 instructor 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 14th)
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Week 5 – Your group will finish the HR newsletter exercise. You will develop an 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 21st)
Week 6 – With the HR Newsletter finished you will be 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 28th)
The Discussion Questions:
Every week (except in week 7), there will be a discussion question posted. It will be based on the
readings for the week (from one of the two units) and will give students a chance to think
critically and reflect on new concepts. You will have until Sunday 5pm of each week to post your
response to the discussion question and reply to two others’ students’ posts. Each discussion
question will be worth 5 points. You will need to post something of substance for your own
response and the responses to other students to receive the full 5 points.
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Graded Material in the Course:
Grades in the class are based on four sets of materials: quizzes, a final exam, work exercises, and
discussion questions.
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 everyone 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 11)
Final exam (75 items)
330
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
Participation in Discussions
Total Points for Course
30
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.
Assignment
Opens
Due/Closes
th
Quizzes 1 and 2
Monday, May 17 , 9:00 am
Friday, May 21st, 2:00 pm
Discussion Question 1
Monday, May 17th, 9:00 am
Sunday, May 23rd, 5:00 pm
th
Work Exercise 1
Monday, May 17 , 9:00 am
Monday, May 24th, 2:00 pm
Quizzes 3 and 4
Monday, May 24th, 9:00 am
Friday, May 28th, 2:00 pm
th
Discussion Question 2
Monday, May 24 , 9:00 am
Sunday, May 30th, 5:00 pm
Work Exercise 2
Monday, May 24th, 9:00 am
Tuesday*, June 1st, 2:00 pm
st
Quizzes 5 and 6
Tuesday*, June 1 , 9:00 am
Friday, June 4th, 2:00 pm
Discussion Question 3
Tuesday*, June 1st, 9:00 am
Sunday, June 6th, 5:00 pm
Work Exercise 3
Tuesday*, June 1st, 9:00 am
Monday, June 7th, 2:00 pm
th
Quizzes 7 and 8
Monday, June 7 , 9:00 am
Friday, June 11th, 2:00 pm
Discussion Question 4
Monday, June 7th, 9:00 am
Sunday, June 13th, 5:00 pm
th
Work Exercise 4
Monday, June 7 , 9:00 am
Monday, June 14th, 2:00 pm
Quizzes 9 and 10
Monday, June 14th, 9:00 am
Friday, June 18th, 2:00 pm
th
Discussion Question 5
Monday, June 14 , 9:00 am
Sunday, June 20th, 5:00 pm
Work Exercise 5
Monday, June 14th, 9:00 am
Monday, June 21st, 2:00 pm
Quizzes 11 and 12
Monday, June 21st, 9:00 am
Friday, June 25th, 2:00 pm
st
Discussion Question 6
Monday, June 21 , 9:00 am
Sunday, June 27th, 5:00 pm
Work Exercise 6
Monday, June 21st, 9:00 am
Monday, June 28th, 2:00 pm
th
Quiz 13
Monday, June 28 , 9:00 am
Thursday, July 1st, 9:00 pm
Final Exam
Thursday, July 1st, 9:00 am
Thursday, July 1st, 9:00 pm
*
Note: Activities normally activated/closed on Monday are on Tuesday because of Memorial
Day.
Accommodations:
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.