If you are interested in participating in research...

My research lab is always looking for collaborators. Some students earn psychology credit by registering in psychology 485 or 488. Others may work for monetary compensation. Still others may participate purely for the experience. Students who become involved are exposed to the entire research process, starting with conceptualization of the study and ending with data collection, analysis, and interpretation. If you have any interest in working as a member of a research team on one or more projects, please do not hesitate to contact me at Dipboye@Rice.edu.

The field of industrial and organizational psychology (I/O psych) tends to be divided between those who study the personnel or human resource management side of the problem and those who study the social psychological aspects of organizations. My own approach has been to integrate the two. I particularly like to take social psychological concepts and apply them to issues of human resource management. There are several projects currently underway that have been a focus of my time and attention in recent years.

1. What are the effects of interviewer expectancies on their behavior toward applicants they interview and their assessments of these applicants?

2. Why is personal attractiveness and appearance fundamental to biases that occur on the basis of race, ethnicity, sex, age, physical disability, and sexual orientation?

3. What are the personal and situational factors influencing the enactment of leadership styles?

4. Why are unstructured, less rigorous approaches to selection more likely to be found in organizations despite their psychometric inferiority to structured approaches?

5. How does the quality of relationships among individuals in an organizations influence such organizational phenomena as leadership, assessment, training, team behavior, and work motivation? How can social capital approaches enhance our understanding of traditional topics in organizational psychology?

6. What individual differences influence how people respond to different training techniques and media (e.g., traditional lecture vs. experiential vs. distance learning)?

7. Under what conditions does "bad teaching" facilitate learning and "good teaching" interfere with learning?

Your experiences might include:

• Experimental research: preparing and running experiments
• Administering tests and other measures
• Library research and literature searches
• Data entry and management
• Computer work (word processing, use of statistical packages)
• Recruitment of research participants
• Preparation of questionnaires and survey instruments
• Preparation of APA style bibliographies

Grading System:

Your grade is based on four factors.

• Completion of your credit hour commitment (3 hours per week for each credit hour)
• Demonstration of responsibility and reliability in performing research tasks
• Flexibility and openness in accepting new projects and assignments
• Taking initiative and seeking opportunities to learn new tasks and skills.

Hours:

Students work three hours per week for each credit hour they have signed up for. Three credit hours translates into a nine hour commitment per week for a total of 135 hours per semester (two credit hours requires six hours a week for a total of 90 hours).