SIOP 2013: Day 2

SIOP 2013 Coverage: Schedule Planning | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3

Day 2 of SIOP 2013 was a bit busier for me. After an early breakfast, I headed to my first session of the day at 8:30, a discussion of social media in selection, which ended up really being a discussion of LinkedIn in selection. Like Day 1, this was a bit depressing. Although there was a lot of talk about social media, there was not much data, which is what I was really hoping for.  I did hear a few interesting tidbits in this session that I had not heard before. For example, a lot of managers look up job candidates on LinkedIn, where many pieces of information are shared that would not be part of a job application, like profile pictures and affiliated religious groups.  Once a hiring manager sees such information, their judgment has potentially been irreparably affected – or more critically, the possibility that it has been so affected creates a substantial legal risk. How can an organization prove that manager wasn’t influenced by the job candidate’s race, skin color, national origin, gender or religion once they have been exposed to it?

The next session on social media was a little better, data-wise, but it wasn’t perfect. One of the presentations provided some data on the criterion-related validity of LinkedIn profiles for predicting job performance, as an extension of a previously published paper doing the same for Facebook profiles. As it turns out, LinkedIn profiles can provide valuable information to hiring managers.  But I asked a question of the speakers: Aren’t we just setting ourselves up to redo this same study for every social media platform of the moment? If we seek a scientific understanding of the useful information provided by social media, don’t we need a better way to do it? Everyone seemed to think that was a great idea, but alas, I didn’t get any specific recommendations on how to go about it.

Next, I headed to a symposium on online simulation, which was absolutely packed. Much in line with what I noticed from Day 1, practitioners are hungry for data on how these technologies have and should affect their practice – and yet again, data was a bit light. They presented some interesting assessment tools, but they seemed like relatively small advancements over what we already have – for example, the use of branching video-based simulations rather than branching text or static video assessments.  The practitioners did bring up some interesting issues they faced in launching these technologies globally.  For example, when they tried to launch their video-based simulation in another country with poor Internet infrastructure, they discovered that bandwidth was not the guarantee that it is in the US – their client couldn’t view the videos at even quasi-decent quality. This resulted in some rather last minute changes to meet client needs.

After this symposium, I headed over to the poster session on training – in an hour, I got through only about 75% of the room.  Hopefully I’ll have a bunch of papers incoming to my inbox in the next few days so that I can revisit them in more detail than a 3′ x 5′ poster can provide!

Finally, at 5PM, in a symposium with my colleagues at ICF and ARI on emerging training technologies, I gave my presentation on gamification, which was by a large margin the most successful presentation I have ever given at SIOP in the 9 years I have attended.  In it, I presented a theoretical model of gamification providing two specific mechanisms by which gamification can affect learning in the context of education/training, and I tested one of those processes empirically, providing several practical recommendations for those wishing to gamify their own organizational learning. I had literally 25 minutes of questions and comments after the session ended!

All in all, an exceptionally successful Day 2! Day 3 is a bit lighter, and I suspect tonight will be a bit more intense, so Day 3 may also start a bit late. But I am still hopeful for some great learning and some great conversations.