We’re currently in the midst of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology’s annual conference, which as appropriate to a pandemic, is mostly via Zoom. Over three thousand people are participating. Another side effect of the pandemic, one that I did not expect but realized because of the online conference, is that there has been an explosion in I-O psychology podcasts. I also realized 1) there is no centralized record keeping for I-O podcasts and 2) I-O podcasts are hard to search for because most don’t use the words “industrial-organizational” or “I-O” because you obviously don ..read more

Direct link to the application and formal job ad: https://hr.myu.umn.edu/jobs/ext/339848 As part of a recently-funded US National Science Foundation project in which we will be building an online virtual interviewing platform, my laboratory will be hiring a part-time project manager with work to do for roughly the next two years.  Actual workload will vary week-to-week between 10 and 25 hours (less in the beginning and more later).  The position requires a Bachelor’s degree in a scientific field (psychology and computer science are targeted in the ad, but a degree from a business sch ..read more

Although I’m now an industrial-organizational psychologist, that was not always the dream. As early as 5 years old, I wanted to do something involving computers. At that time, this mostly involved making my name appear in pretty flashing colors using BASICA. But that interest eventually evolved into a longer-term interest in computer programming and electronics tinkering that worked its way into a college Computer Science major. Starting around the same time, also from that early age, I decided I wanted to be a “professor,” mostly because I found the idea of knowing more than everyone else abo ..read more

Grad School Series: Applying to Graduate School in Industrial/Organizational Psychology Starting Sophomore Year: Should I get a Ph.D. or Master’s? | How to Get Research Experience Starting Junior Year: Preparing for the GRE | Getting Recommendations Starting Senior Year: Where to Apply | Traditional vs. Online Degrees | Personal Statements Alternative Path: Managing a Career Change to I/O | Pursuing a PhD Post-Master’s Interviews/Visits: Preparing for Interviews | Going to InterviewsIn Graduate School: Wh ..read more

Direct link to the application and formal job ad: https://hr.myu.umn.edu/jobs/ext/337757 As part of a recently-funded US National Science Foundation project in which we will be building an online virtual interviewing platform, my laboratory will be hiring a part-time project manager with work to do for roughly the next two years.  Actual workload will vary week-to-week between 10 and 25 hours (less in the beginning and more later).  The position requires a Bachelor’s degree in a scientific field (psychology and computer science are targeted in the ad, but a degree from a business sch ..read more

The annual meeting of the American Psychological Association has moved fully online this year, and it’s actually pretty good – the online platform is easy to search and use, making finding interesting content very straightforward. They have a live program running for 3 days that you can tune into, plus virtual content that will be available for about a month. All pretty cheap, as low as $15 for student APA members to attend. The virtual content includes a full program put together by SIOP: 1 invited address, 5 symposia, 1 discussion (panel), and 34 posters. Much of this content is in video, wh ..read more

UPDATE: If you missed the live event, you can still check out a recording here! This will probably only stay posted for a few weeks, so get it while you can! If you’re in the gaming space, or if you have a kid whom you’ve watched over their shoulder while they played Minecraft, you’ve probably seen a Let’s Play. Let’s Plays are live, narrated explorations of video games. A person plays the game but also provides a bit of think-aloud as they play, and people watch in real-time. “That was weird!” “That was cool!” “Here’s what I’m planning to do next.” It is a sort of a combination of think-aloud ..read more

If there’s one thing that white-collar workers around the world suddenly have in common because of COVID-19, it’s that we are very suddenly tied to our keyboards, even more so than before. And some of us were very tied to our keyboards! Unfortunately, as you probably suspected, sitting in front of a computer keyboard for 8 hours a day is not particularly good for your health. The bigger rules about using a computer at a desk I feel are more common knowledge. Drink lots of water. At least once an hour, stand up and walk around for at least 10 minutes, and either go outside or look out windows i ..read more

One of the depressing yet unsurprising outcomes of the COVID-19 crisis has been the increase in concern about online test security. People are worried students will cheat on their tests. I definitely understand this concern. Like many instructors who have taught online for a while, it is one of many issues I’m hearing about fresh once again, after having worried about and resolved it over a decade ago. I perhaps naively thought of online testing as one of those things that “more or less resolved” at an institutional level, when clearly in-person instructors have no clue what we’ve been doing o ..read more

Most pressure by teachers, instructors, professors, and trainers to develop and release high-quality online materials instantaneously in this age of self-isolation is self-imposed. Most full-time online instructors put six months to a year of effort into their online courses before they run an online course for the first time. You really don’t need to fake the kind of production values and planning that come out the work done with that sort of lead time. Don’t try, because you’ll just end up driving yourself into a wound up ball of anxiety. Having said that, one area that people find very frus ..read more