LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Combatting Predatory I-O Training Programs

Afra S. Ahmad & AJ Thurston

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Reminder: All TIP submissions, including Letters to the Editor, are peer reviewed before acceptance for publication. All accepted submissions are subject to editor revisions for clarity, formatting, length, and adherence to TIP policies while maintaining the spirit of the original submission. Opinions expressed are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology or TIP unless so stated.

Combatting Predatory I-O Training Programs

Afra S. Ahmad & AJ Thurston
George Mason University

In her recent TIP Column, (now past) SIOP President Dr. Tara Behrend addressed the state of education and training in industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology. I-O psychology continues to grow rapidly, faster than average compared to other professions.¹ This growth comes with a major downside: opportunity for predatory training programs with resources to market new I-O psychology programs. These programs tend to sell themselves aggressively to nontraditional students such as veterans,² but they can leave students unprepared for the workforce³ and burdened with debt.⁴ This could also tarnish the I-O psychology brand identity among our stakeholders. Dr. Behrend outlines several strategies for addressing poor-quality training for doctoral programs at the SIOP level, including new tracking metrics of graduate programs. To reinforce these global efforts, she calls on individual I-O psychology education and training programs to maintain our level of rigor while finding ways to combat the appeal of predatory programs.

Some existing I-O programs are well positioned to meet the SIOP president’s call by leveraging best practices for rigorous training in I-O for nontraditional students. Previous commentary has highlighted the efforts of a master’s degree-level program to provide quality training, and these solutions overlap with this call to address broader training needs.⁵ Specifically, these efforts include

• maintaining training rigor consistent with in-person, traditional training,⁶
• addressing predatory practices head-on by offering flexibility, belongingness, and a return on investment.

Maintaining Training Rigor

The quality of any program is contingent on the quality of the faculty involved in it. This means a distinguished faculty cadre must be at the forefront of these programs. From the students’ perspective, this affords them the opportunity to truly learn the scientist–practitioner approach by learning from faculty who lean more toward the former camp (i.e., senior faculty) and those who lean more toward practice (i.e., adjunct faculty). It is imperative to have manageable cohort sizes to facilitate mentoring opportunities. The mentorship model should include both faculty and peers providing support. Indeed, nontraditional students often have a wealth of experience to share, usually from a variety of position levels, jobs, and industries. Mentorship can occur within formal class settings, such as senior students speaking to entry-level students during live office hours or outside the classroom through program-wide engagements and various platforms such as Slack and Discord. Rigorous training can be attained through the support of faculty and collaborative mentorship models.

Addressing Predatory Practices

Predatory programs attract nontraditional students by promising flexibility and acceptance. In response, programs can leverage an asynchronous learning environment to help nontraditional students learn at their own pace and/or provide a compressed training schedule. Our graduate training programs can engage in many activities to show their commitment to promoting inclusion. For example, live office hours facilitate deeper connections with faculty and opportunities to network with senior cohort members, alumni, and distinguished external guest speakers. Broader program-wide events, such as weekly colloquia and social events, can be held in hybrid formats to include both on-ground and online students. Such tactics afford students the opportunity to build community within and across related programs at the same institution. Finally, partnerships and promotions with affinity groups, such as Blacks in I/O Psychology, can support diverse students’ needs. In sum, a strong organizational culture is the key to student success, regardless of the training environment.

The second major marketing advantage predatory programs offer is promising a return on investment. These programs invest in expensive⁷ advertisements, and any single I-O program or even a SIOP-led effort is unlikely to compete here. However, faculty, students, and alumni play a critical role in educating applicant decision makers less familiar with the field with information about what constitutes a reputable training program and the return on their educational endeavors. This means, students and alumni need to engage with graduate programs and share career outcomes so that, in turn, training programs can share this metric with applicants. This collective effort must be emphasized to all stakeholders to maintain the field brand. In addition, our training programs need to add/extend marketing-related job tasks to market programs effectively. One low-cost/low-time investment marketing tool is offering virtual open houses, where prospective students are afforded the opportunity to learn more about a program and have specific questions answered in real time. These tools may help blunt the marketing effectiveness of predatory programs and steer prospective students toward high-quality training.

Conclusions

SIOP (Past) President Dr. Behrend has called on the I-O community to address the quality of I-O education and training. A perceived dearth of high-quality, convenient I-O training programs means predatory programs are filling the gap, causing short-term harm to nontraditional students, with the potential for long-term damage to our field’s reputation for reliable and quality insights as I-O psychologists. SIOP, as an institution, can only do so much to address this issue, requiring support from high-quality, individual programs to buttress national efforts.

Notes

¹ National Center for O*NET Development. (n.d.). 19-3032.00 - Industrial-organizational psychologists. O*NET OnLine. https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/19-3032.00

² United States Government Accountability Office (GAO). (2014). VA education benefits: VA should strengthen its efforts to help veterans make informed education choices. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-14-324

³ Deming, D. J., Goldin, C., & Katz, L. F. (2012). The for-profit postsecondary school sector: Nimble critters or agile predators? Journal of Economic Perspectives, 26(1), 139–164. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.26.1.139

⁴ https://researchcghe.org/publications/working-paper/promising-or-predatory-online-education-in-non-profit-and-for-profit-universities/

⁵Ahmad, A. S., Stagl, K. C., Zhou, S., & Zaccaro, S. J. (2022). Optimizing an online I-O program: Tips and lessons learned from launching an online master’s program. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 15(2), 195–199. https://doi.org/10.1017/iop.2022.22

⁶ Editor’s note: In-person or “traditional” programs are not synonymous with quality and rigor, just as online programs are not synonymous with low-quality, low-rigor, or predatory practices. It is up to applicants to thoroughly research prospective programs. SIOP provides resources to help raise student awareness of relevant criteria to evaluate program quality, for example, How to Choose a Graduate Training Program.

⁷ https://www.webfx.com/digital-advertising/pricing/cost-to-advertise-on-national-tv/