COURSE OVERVIEW:
Industrial-organisational psychology is the branch of psychology that applies psychological theories and principles to organisations. Often referred to as I-O psychology, this field focuses on increasing workplace productivity and related issues such as the physical and mental well-being of employees.
Industrial-organisational psychologists perform a wide variety of tasks, including studying worker attitudes and behaviour, evaluating companies, and conducting leadership training. The overall goal of this field is to study and understand human behaviour in the workplace.
You can think of industrial-organisational psychology as having two major sides. First, there is the industrial side, which involves looking at how to best match individuals to specific job roles. This segment of I-O psychology is also sometimes referred to as personnel psychology. People who work in this area might assess employee characteristics and then match these individuals to jobs in which they are likely to perform well. Other functions that fall on the industrial side of I-O psychology include training employees, developing job performance standards, and measuring job performance.
The organisational side of psychology is more focused on understanding how organisations affect individual behaviour. Organisational structures, social norms, management styles, and role expectations are all factors that can influence how people behave within an organisation.
By understanding such factors, I-O psychologists hope to improve individual performance and health while at the same time benefiting the organisation as a whole.
While industrial-organisational psychology is an applied field, basic theoretical research is also essential. With roots in experimental psychology, I-O psychology has a number of different sub-areas such as human-computer interaction, personnel psychology, and human factors.
This course provides an introduction to the field of Industrial-Organisational Psychology and an overview of research methods used by I-O psychologists.
The first part of this course, will define the field of industrial-organisational psychology, look at some of the specialty areas within the discipline, and discuss what industrial-organisational psychologists do. Also, will look briefly at the history of industrial-organisational psychology, focusing on some of the important early developments in the field. Finally, will consider industrial-organisational psychology today to see how the field is progressing, then will examine some of the important trends now and for the near future.
The second part, will discuss the basic social science research methods used by I-O psychologists to study work behaviour. Also, discusses why the research process is important for industrial-organisational psychology and examines the goals of social science research methods. Then will review the step-by-step procedures used in social science research and conclude with a discussion of how research results are interpreted and applied to increase our understanding of actual work behaviour.
The final part, will look at the statistical analyses of research data and discuss two types of statistics: descriptive statistics, used to summarise recorded observations of behaviour, and inferential statistics, used to test hypotheses about research data. Then we’ll look at the statistical analysis of experimental method data and the statistical analysis of correlational method data, used to analyse data.
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
By the end of this course, you will be able to understand:
- What is industrial-organisational psychology?
- The science and practice of industrial-organisational psychology
- The roots of industrial-organisational psychology
- The early history of industrial-organisational psychology
- What does an I-O psychologist really do?
- Industrial-organisational psychology during World War I and the 1920s
- Industrial-organisational psychology during the great depression years and World War II
- Industrial-organisational psychology during the post-war years and the modern era
- Industrial-organisational psychology today and in the future
- The research methods in industrial-organisational psychology
- The basics of research methods and design
- The social science research methods
- The goals of social science research methods
- The steps in the research process
- The formulation of the problem or issue
- The generation of hypotheses
- Examples of hypotheses in I-O psychology research
- The selection of research design
- The collection of data
- The analyses of research data
- The interpretation of research results
- The major research designs
- The experimental method
- The Quasi-experiments
- The correlational method
- The complex correlational designs
- The meta-analysis
- The case study method
- The measurement of variables
- The observational techniques
- The self-report techniques
- The key issues in measuring variables: reliability and validity
- Measuring work outcomes
- The interpretation and usage of research results
- The ethical issues in research and practice in I-O psychology
- The statistical analyses of research data
- The descriptive statistics
- The inferential statistics
- The statistical analysis of experimental method data
- The statistical analysis of correlational method data
COURSE DURATION:
The typical duration of this course is approximately 2-3 hours to complete. Your enrolment is Valid for 12 Months. Start anytime and study at your own pace.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
You must have access to a computer or any mobile device with Adobe Acrobat Reader (free PDF Viewer) installed, to complete this course.
COURSE DELIVERY:
Purchase and download course content.
ASSESSMENT:
A simple 10-question true or false quiz with Unlimited Submission Attempts.
CERTIFICATION:
Upon course completion, you will receive a customised digital “Certificate of Completion”.