Research done by David V. Day, associate professor
of industrial/organizational psychology, illustrates
the importance of proper training for those conducting
performance evaluations of employees.
Photo: Greg Grieco
By Paul A. Blaum
Public Information
The job performance rating ritual is often a source of discomfort for supervisor and employee alike. However, researchers said training sessions for raters can make the job rating process more accurate and relevant.
"Supervisors, like most people, dislike performance ratings, which require giving frank and constructive feedback. This is all the more reason for companies to invest in rater training," said David V. Day, associate professor of industrial/organizational psychology. "Our results showed that trained raters were more 'other directed' in comparison to untrained raters, who tended to be more self-referent or idiosyncratic. This other-directness was shown to be positively related to rating accuracy."
"Frame-of-reference" training teaches the organization's theory of performance. It focuses on the important job performance dimensions valued by the organization, and the various behaviors indicative of good, average and poor performance for each dimension. Such behaviors would include cooperativeness with others and reliability, according to Day. The training makes use of people's natural tendencies to draw trait-based inferences about others. Instead of global personality traits, however, frame-of-reference training substitutes the job performance dimensions that comprise the organization's performance theory.
The key to fair and accurate performance appraisals of employees is for supervisors to separate the signal (job-relevant information) from the noise (non-job-relevant information).
"Frame-of-reference rater training teaches supervisors to do just that by focusing on job performance characteristics that enhance productivity and the employee's ability to fit within an organization," Day said.
The training teaches people to associate work-related performance concepts with observed behaviors, substituting job-relevant performance dimensions for more general trait labels.
"Proper performance appraisals of employees are critical for organizations," said Day. "Supervisors cannot, however, use appraisals as a political ploy or a method of meting out rewards and punishments. If performance reviews are done poorly, employees can come away with the impression the company is out to get them and resort to legal action."
Day collaborated with Deidre J. Schleicher, assistant professor of psychology at Kansas State University, on the research.
The newly installed Marcario Low-Resolution Spectrograph on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope has confirmed the existence of a quasar approximately 10 billion light-years from Earth -- so far away that the light we see from it today began traveling toward Earth when the universe was only one-eighth of its current age.
Quasars are very luminous objects that are thought to be powered by supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies.
The object was first identified as a possible quasar by observations in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a large, multi-institutional project to survey a quarter of the sky to unprecedented completeness. Donald Schneider, associate professor of astronomy and head of the quasar science portion of the Sloan project, proposed the Hobby-Eberly Telescope observation to study more closely the newly discovered object, which resulted in its identification as a quasar.
The Marcario spectrograph is the first facility-class instrument to be delivered for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, which is the third largest telescope in the world. It is an imaging spectrograph designed to observe very faint astronomical objects.
The classification of the quasar was the second observation with the Marcario spectrograph. The first came two days earlier, and involved capturing the spectrum of supernova 1999bv, a super-brilliant star.
This supernova was observed two days after its discovery, and the spectrum allowed it to be confirmed and classified. As this supernova fades beyond the reach of smaller telescopes, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope will be able to follow its evolution in a systematic manner.
Two other facility-class spectrographs will be added later to the Hobby-Eberly Telescope. A medium-resolution spectrograph is being constructed at Penn State under the direction of Hobby-Eberly Telescope project scientist Larry Ramsey; and a high-resolution spectrograph is being constructed at the University of Texas at Austin under the direction of Robert Tull. These instruments will enable more detailed study of objects in and near the Milky Way.
Researchers in the College of Medicine have shown that a new antidote for the treatment of antifreeze poisoning is safer and more effective than the current method of treatment.
"Unfortunately the accidental or intentional ingestion of ethylene glycol (antifreeze) does occur fairly often. We probably see about 10 cases each year at the Central Pennsylvania Poison Center," said Dr. J. Ward Donovan, associate professor of medicine. "Giving patients fomepizole blocks the breakdown of the antifreeze, which is what causes the renal failure in these patients."
The study consisted of 23 patients who had ethylene glycol poisoning. Ten sites participated in the clinical trial with the majority of patients being seen at The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. Donovan worked with Dr. Keith Burkhart, associate professor of medicine, and other colleagues.
Donovan also said that for decades this kind of poisoning was treated by giving patients alcohol intravenously. This often makes the patient intoxicated and does not always keep the antifreeze from breaking down. That means that patients may still have to undergo dialysis treatment.
"This new method of treatment is much more reliable at stopping the breakdown of material. It really buys you time. That time is needed for the kidneys to either excrete the material or buys time to get the patient on dialysis if it is still needed," said Donovan. "Also, you obviously don't have the side effect of intoxicating the patients on alcohol."