Facilitating Collaborative Knowledge Building

This article describes a detailed analysis of knowledge building in a problem-based learning group. Knowledge building involves increasing the collective knowledge of a group through social discourse. For knowledge building to occur in the classroom, the teacher needs to create opportunities for constructive discourse in order to support student learning and collective knowledge building. In problem-based learning, students learn through collaborative problem solving and reflecting on their experiences. The setting for this study is a group of second-year medical students working with an expert facilitator. The analysis was designed to understand how the facilitator provided opportunities for knowledge-building discourse and how the learners accomplished collective knowledge building. We examined episodes of knowledge-building discourse, the questions and statements that the students and facilitator generated throughout the tutorial, the change in their understanding of the problem that they were solving, and the collective knowledge that was constructed. The results indicate that the group worked to progressively improve their ideas through engaging in knowledge-building discourse. The facilitator helped support knowledge building through asking open-ended metacognitive questions and catalyzing group progress. Students took responsibility for advancing the group's understanding as they asked many high-level questions and built on each others thinking to construct collaborative explanations. The results of this study provide suggestions for orchestrating knowledge-building discourse.     

Children's Mechanistic Reasoning

Reasoning about mechanisms is one of the hallmarks of disciplined inquiry in science and engineering, but comparatively little is known about its precursors and development. Children at grades 2 and 5 predicted and explained the motion of simple mechanical systems composed entirely of visible linkages (levers). Students' explanations of device behavior suggested four forms of knowledge: simple recognition of device components, noting of structural relations among components, construction of cause-effect rules derived by observation of regularities in device behavior, and identification of essential system components and interactions among components that accounted for cause–effect rules. Only a few children coordinated multiple essential components to constitute a mechanistic causal scheme. Mechanistic causal schemes, in turn, were associated with successful prediction of the output motion of a system. Device tracing via gesture and talk appeared to support this form of knowledge development, and hence may inform future instructional design.     

Why so confident? The influence of outcome desirability on selective exposure and likelihood judgment

Previous studies that have directly manipulated outcome desirability have often found little effect on likelihood judgments (i.e., no desirability bias or wishful thinking). The present studies tested whether selections of new information about outcomes would be impacted by outcome desirability, thereby biasing likelihood judgments. In Study 1, participants made predictions about novel outcomes and then selected additional information to read from a buffet. They favored information supporting their prediction, and this fueled an increase in confidence. Studies 2 and 3 directly manipulated outcome desirability through monetary means. If a target outcome (randomly preselected) was made especially desirable, then participants tended to select information that supported the outcome. If made undesirable, less supporting information was selected. Selection bias was again linked to subsequent likelihood judgments. These results constitute novel evidence for the role of selective exposure in cases of overconfidence and desirability bias in likelihood judgments.     

Editorial: Three Perspectives of Employment Discrimination 50 Years After the Civil Rights Act—A Promise Fulfilled?

Purpose

In recognition of the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, this paper reviews contradictory perspectives of the status of employment discrimination.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Arguments are derived from psychology, management, law, and political science to contrast perspectives that civil rights legislation has (a) done its job, (b) gone too far, and (c) not gone far enough.

Findings

We determine that disagreement is inevitable and that no unified conclusion can be drawn. Recognition of the viewpoints embedded in opposing perspectives, however, offers direction for the future of organizational science and practice.

Implications

Consideration of these disparate views of civil rights legislation enables thoughtful reflection on the past, present, and future of civil rights legislation.

Originality/Value

This paper offers a variety of lenses through which to consider employment discrimination in the organizational sciences and underscores the value of the papers collected in the special issue.     

The Origins and Legacy of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Purpose

This paper provides a historical review of the origins and legacy of the 1964 Civil Rights Act through the lens of the African American Civil Rights and the Women’s Rights Movements.

Design/Methodology/Approach

The historical narrative was developed using psychological, historical, and legal source material.

Findings

While the Civil Rights Act did not immediately change the landscape of equality in the American workplace, it signaled a fundamental shift in the treatment of racial and gender diversity. In concert with other social, legal, and political shifts, it paved the way for progress on issues like affirmative action, pregnancy discrimination, and sexual harassment.

Implications

Without an understanding of the historical development and consequences of the Civil Rights Act, it is easy to lose sight of how the act has shaped the understanding of equality in the American workforce. Further, the way in which rights movements evolved alongside each other illuminates a need to focus not only on equality between majority and minority groups but also on issues of equality among minority groups.

Originality/Value

Previous reviews of the Civil Rights Act and rights movements tend to focus narrowly on one issue or group, and approach that concern from a single academic discipline. In contrast, we provide a review of the roots and consequences of the Civil Rights Act based on the developments of two rights movements, and draw from sources in psychology, history, political science, and legal perspectives to provide a broader picture of this landmark legislation.     

Decision Strategies and the Confidence–Accuracy Relationship in Face Recognition

The decision strategy used to select a choice set from an array of alternative options is known to affect the composition of the final choice set. Specifically, individuals incorporate more answers into their choice set when it is created by eliminating implausible items than when the set is created through the inclusion of plausible options. This difference is accounted for in a decision framework that posits a general reluctance to change the status quo (i.e., actively include or exclude an item). We extended this work to investigate, not only the decisions themselves, but also metacognitive judgments (i.e., confidence in the accuracy of the choice set). In two face recognition experiments, we tested the impact of decision strategy (Experiment 1) and confidence judgment strategy (Experiment 2) on the confidence–accuracy relationship. In Experiment 1, participants completed two blocks of recognition trials, one under inclusion (marking previously seen faces) and one under elimination (marking previously unseen faces) instructions. We observed superior resolution (i.e., discrimination between correct and incorrect) for inclusion trials, but only when they were completed prior to use of the elimination strategy. In Experiment 2, all participants completed face recognition trials under inclusion instructions, but we manipulated the strategy used to assess confidence. Again, we observed a significant impact of strategy on confidence–accuracy resolution. Thus, we observed that both the strategy employed to reach a decision and that employed to assess confidence affected the confidence–accuracy relationship. We discuss theoretical and applied (particularly for eyewitness identification and multiple‐choice testing) implications. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Revisiting the Origins of the Typical-Maximum Performance Distinction

Data were collected from a sample of 262 Korean employees to (a) examine personality correlates of Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCBs) motivated by “good soldier” (i.e., prosocial values and organizational concern) and “good actor” (i.e., impression management [IM]) motives and (b) investigate how these OCB motives influenced actual coworker ratings of OCB. Personality variables were measured using the six-dimensional model of personality known as the HEXACO model. As hypothesized, (low) Honesty–Humility is the primary personality dimension underlying IM motivated OCB. Further, Conscientiousness positively related to OCB driven by each of the three motives. Agreeableness, Emotionality, and Openness to Experience also demonstrated relationships with the OCB motives. Second, OCBs for the organizational concern and IM motives, but not for the prosocial values motive, were positively associated with coworker ratings of OCB.     

Initial Validation of the U.S. Army Global Assessment Tool

The U.S. Army developed the Global Assessment Tool (GAT) to monitor psychosocial fitness and well-being among soldiers and provide a means to objectively gauge the success of newly implemented resilience training programs. Despite its widespread use (taken over 5.2 million times) and stated utility for program evaluation, there is relatively little published evidence regarding the GAT’s reliability and validity. We used exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) with 4 random samples of soldiers (n = 10,000 each) to examine the factorial validity and reliability of the GAT. An 11-factor solution (Self-Management, Positive Affect, Meaning, Work Engagement, Organizational Trust, Loneliness, Negative Cognitions, Hostility, Negative Emotions, Depressive Symptoms, and Emotion-Focused Coping), with 4 additional factors assessing character strengths (Intellect, Warmth, Civic Strengths, and Temperance), fit well and replicated in a second random sample. A higher order, 2-factor model using composites scores and positing positive and negative psychosocial competencies also fit well. Tests of measurement invariance using a third random sample reinforced consistent measurement properties across gender, age, and rank, with the exception of character strengths, which produced different factor structures for males and females. Further validity tests using a fourth random sample underscored a modicum of divergence among the resilience factors and convergence among the character strengths factors. We conclude with recommendations for enhancing and refining the GAT and discuss the GAT’s utility as a reliable, multidimensional psychosocial assessment that can be used to evaluate the efficacy of military resilience training programs.     

The Role of Effort–Reward Imbalance for Reservists on a Military Deployment

The present study extended the effort–reward imbalance (ERI) model (Siegrist, 1996b Siegrist, J. 1996b. “Soziale Krisen und Gesundheit [Social crises and health]”. In Gesundheitspsychologie [Health psychology] Edited by: Krohne, H. W., Schmidt, L., Netter, P. and Schwarzer, R. Vol. 5, Göttingen, , Germany: Hogrefe.  [Google Scholar]), first by differentiating between separate reward components, second by including intrinsic reward, and third by additionally predicting a non-health outcome (i.e., turnover intention) in a military context. Regression analyses of 789 reservists found financial and esteem reward to moderate the impact of extrinsic effort on depressive symptoms, whereas only financial reward moderated the effort turnover intentions relationship. Results supported the usefulness of the extended ERI model in the military context. Relevant areas for future research on the military effort–reward perspective are discussed.